


Prince Unicorn (If There's Anything More Important Than My Ego Around, I Want It Caught And Shot Now)

by ZeeCatfish



Series: Spacebestiary (Unicorn Princes and Other Mythological Marvels Only Found In Space) [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Dave is not an alien, Everyone is aliens, Illustrated, M/M, Space Opera, except for the people who are not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 09:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1545470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeeCatfish/pseuds/ZeeCatfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After years spent mastering his job-hopping skills on the interplanetary level, a combination of chance and fortunate family ties lands one Dave Strider a job as a personal bodyguard to Eridan Ampora, prince and heir to an almost unparalleled fiscal empire. </p><p>He assumes it’ll be just another job he’ll be able to leave behind when the time comes, another story to tell on slow nights where the man with the most tales is the king of the universe, but as all things in life, nothing is ever quite that simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just What Do You Think You’re Doing, Dave?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twentoobird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twentoobird/gifts).



> After taking some significant creative liberties with the prompt given, Prince!Eridan/Knight!Dave has become merchant prince!Eridan/Bodyguard Dave in space, because after some experimentation it was revealed I suck at medieval things. So uh, I hope you don't mind space and classical tacky sci-fi elements like flying cars and weird aliens. Beyond that I stuck pretty close to what was asked for so yeah uwu.
> 
> Because trolls do not have any type of family dynasty structure that would allow for a legitimate prince-like position for Eridan, PU-verse!Eridan is an entirely different brand of alien that allows him to maintain his seadweller status AND his alien status without tying me to the sinkhole that is troll logic. A portrait of what he looks like in this verse has been added to the ending notes of this chapter, accompanied by a drivel of useless trivia, because I like useless trivia.
> 
> Also a massive shoutout to my beta, to be named after the name reveal, because only a truly ridiculous but fantastic friend allows a friend to dump 30k+ of words into their laps to look over with a week to the deadline without tossing it into my face and making me tackle the editing on my own. Any mistakes left are, of course, entirely my own.
> 
> Title quote in parentheses in the story title is from 'A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' because quotes are the only way to make a science-fiction story look more serious than it actually is. Especially these kinds of quotes. And also because no more suitable Ampora family motto has ever been coined. 'Prince Unicorn' is not a quote of any kind, and can be taken as the official title of the story.

Dawn on the planet Nunki filters through the half-open blinds into your shitty rented one-bedroom apartment in the form of eerie blue light and the roars and whistles of the local birdlife. 

You’re not one-hundred percent sure if you could even call it ‘birdlife’, because even after almost a decade spent as veteran space-nomad for hire your definition of what a bird is still does not involve fang-like protrusions on the beak or four extra arms in possession of claws, but your planet guide tells you these charming fliers are considered an avian species, so birdlife it is.

The air around you feels heavy and stale, rolling over you like an invasive, uninvited blanket. Apparently the locals thrive in the hot, humid, windless summers on this planet. Your earth-mammal human physiology, however, is inclined to disagree with their preferences.

Reluctantly, you crack your eyes open, lifting your hand to wipe the gunk amassed in the corners away. While it isn’t exactly unusal for you to begin counting the cons of sticking around any one planet for extended periods relatively early on in your stay, you don’t think you’ve ever amassed such a convincing list as fast as you have for Nunki. 

Luckily, you’ve no real need to stick around much longer. Another two delivery contracts to fulfill and you’ll be free to go. There is a pretty strong anti-human bias on Nunki, and your flagging strength and will to live is making it pretty obvious why; the human body is just not made for this kind of climate.

You roll out of bed with a groan and amble over to your miniature bathroom. You’ve never been one for showers, because between Bro and Dirk your old apartment on earth was out of warm water roughly, well, _always_ , and in your years spent planet-hopping you’ve grown an untameable love for bathtubs instead. But Nunkinians do not care for submerging their body into water because, being reptilians, they do not sweat, so you’re lucky enough that you managed to find a place equipped with a shower at all. You’re not sure if you could have stuck out even through your first assignment on this steaming pile of dogturds without the promise of personal hygiene awaiting you at home.

You make the mistake of looking into the mirror before you step under the water. 

Long term exposure to the ridiculous humidity and heat has fritzed your naturally thin, straight hair into the likeness of a platinum blond hedgehog with psychopathic tendencies. The fact that it’s been a while since the last haircut you’ve had isn’t helping any, leaving longer strands swooping into odd directions.

Adding it to the list of reasons you definitely don’t want to be here any longer, you crank the cold water tap open as far as it goes and step under the lukewarm stream. It’s not the shock of frost your system could probably use to get rid of the heat-crud, but it’s the best you can get and at the very least it’s not uncomfortable, being a slightly more manageable temperature than the sweltering humidity you have to deal with the rest of the day.

One shower, refreshing but not as refreshing as you wish it would have been, and several prayers to the gods of expensive blond hair care produce and useless vanity later your hair appears to be less of a middle school chemistry gone horribly wrong and more of a persian cat with issues and brush fright, and you’re ready to set out to deliver the second-last large box of the pile of pending deliveries scattered through your living room. Technically there is no rush, but you’ve just about reached the point where you want the whole gig to be over and done with so you can leave and pretend Nunki never happened at all. 

Then, just as you’re about to head out, your comm vibrates.

It’s an ancient model, clunky and ugly as balls, but it comes with a decent (if somewhat dated) contract that allows for interstellar communication at actually affordable rates compared to any of the swanky, sleek little things you’ve seen offers on in the last couple of years. Considering your wanderlust that makes it irreplaceable. 

The outdated LED display ( _so_ 21st century, jeeze) lights up, flashing an ugly muted orange spelling out the word ‘BRO’. 

You consider hanging up on him out of spite, but decide against it. Bro _never_ picks up his comm and you’re never entirely sure if he actually listens to messages, but you have an inkling that ignoring him right back isn’t really going to benefit anyone. Plus, Bro’s not really one for schmoozing, so you’re at least relatively sure this isn’t a social call.

“Dave Strider, professional space-hazard endangering your ass-backwards non-commercial planets and terrorising their inhabitants with his monstrous bedhair at your service, what the fuck do you want?” 

You think he might be giving you an odd look through the little camera screen, but the display is too tiny to see, and the spotty connection is interfering with the stream quality. “Weren’t you playing dockworker at some kind of gemini spaceport? Did the definition of ass-backwards non-commercial change without me noticing? Kids these days with their slang, can’t even bother to keep it the same long enough for us elderly to keep up with them.”

You flip off the camera and roll your eyes. “‘Last time’ was like a year ago, asshat. Maybe if the elderly want to keep up so badly, they should keep their fucking comms in hobbling range of their walking-aids and pick up some hearing aids to catch the thing ringing.”

Bro pauses for a long while, but you have no idea whether he is somehow seriously considering what you are saying or if he is just forcing the conversation to flow to his whims. Knowing him it could be either. Could be something else entirely. The audio feed crackles back to life. “Sorry, got a message. Anyways, yeah yeah pick up the comm more often blah blah, usual complaints, we’ve had this conversation, man. Moving on.”

You’ve reached the point in your life where you honestly don’t give a shit about Bro’s shitty social habits anymore, but years of habitual nagging have made the same old argument kind of a tradition; Bro doesn’t want to feel tied to you and Dirk like some kind of replacement parent because he feels like he’s done enough by stepping in and raising you both till adulthood after your real parents died. On top of that, or so he claims, normal cousins just ‘don’t do the whole calling twice a week and tea on sundays deal’.You and Dirk counter that that doesn’t mean he has to shut communications down all the way to eternally misdated christmas card level.

Deciding against forcing the conversation, you remain silent and wait for Bro to make his point.

“Yeah so, I’m actually calling because I’ve got a gig you might be interested in. Travelling expenses included, as long as you manage to crawl out of ass-backwards and into any spaceport big enough to allow long-distance fare.”

You perk up. It’s not that you’re especially worried about finding work wherever the fuck you end up next, but travelling is expensive and if there’s any chance of getting a direct travel route instead of buying fare on local supply-run crawlers you’re so on board with that. Combined with the promise of getting off planet hellfire and gloom, this is sounding like whatever gods the locals believe in heard your prayers and took pity on you.

“I’m listening. Though, just so we’re clear, if it’s got decent enough wages I can live somewhere with a bathtub, I’m probably won over. I am a weak man and the tropics are doing terrible things to my complexion. And my hair.”

Bro lifts a hand up to his own hair in what you assume is some kind of solemn sympathy reflex. He’s always been a touch more sensitive about his looks than anyone else in the family, even though you know he’ll try and deny his own vanity till the day he dies. Or possibly after. If anyone could come back from the grave to haunt people for talking shit about his hair, it would be Bro.

“Right, I don’t think I even want to know where you ended up this time. You don’t have to worry about renting anything, it’s an in-house job. On millionaire pissing-contest planet Ancha, so you definitely don’t need to be worrying about any missing facilities. Or about your hair. Live-in place’s bathroom isn’t the fanciest thing ever, but there is a tub.”

Bro works on Ancha, you knew that much. You’re fuzzy on the details because he is a wily fucker who doesn’t bother with small-talk, but you know he works for some big shot, and that he does something that allows him to wear sunglasses at work.

“So, are you going to tell me what mystery job x entails, or is this some kind of guessing game? Because if it is, I’m just going to guess ‘donuts’ until you give in and tell me. I’ve spent the past three weeks slowly cooking in my own sweat, my brain isn’t at full capacity right now.”

Bro takes another long pause, but this time you’re at least reasonably sure he is judging you. It’s not necessarily a disapproving vibe you are catching onto, but it is awakening old, worn insecurities that you would have liked to believe faded away years ago, and it is making you uncomfortable.

“It’s a bodyguarding gig for the same family I work for. It’s a good job, and I know I’ve taught you well enough that you’re qualified. All you need to do is look properly groomed, stand still and try not to look bored while your ward does public stuff, and make sure nobody tries to kill him. It’s got good pay, and you get your own bedroom and bathroom in a ridiculously swanky Ancha penthouse. Win-win, really.”

It _does_ sound like a very good offer. A little bit _too_ good, in fact, to be handing out to down-on-their-luck family members with a reputation for flimsiness. You’re the recycled ductape member of the family, and you know it; good enough to keep things sticking together in an emergency, but it never takes long before you lose interest and have to be replaced.

“I’m assuming this is where you tell me what the catch is.”

Even the crap quality of your video feed cannot hide the shit eating grin spreading over your brother’s face. He’s already hooked you, and he knows it. You are fairly certain you should be worried.

“The catch would be that little prince drama queen disagrees with the notion of _needing_ a bodyguard, and has proven very competent at driving even the most professional meatshields into throwing in the towel. Also, his dad literally owns like one-tenth of the galaxy.”

\---

The Ampora family is an old, noble Lusca family with an almost unparalleled trade-network to their name. Their fiscal empire does not, as Bro said, extend to one-tenth of the galaxy; it extends to _over six different galaxies_ , three of which the Ampora family holds a complete trade monopoly over and all of which they more political sway in than any ‘neutrally aligned’ private party should be allowed to, regardless of whether or not they technically own the deeds to most planets there.

They’re the head supplier to both the Alternian and Beforan Empires, and apparently the family has ‘friendly ties’ to the royals and nobles of both sides of that particular conflict. And it’s not just weaponry they sell to the uncivil troll war efforts according to the websource you’re using to get yourself up to speed. Having started out as a pharmaceutical company back in the early days of their own species’ space travelling days, before their home star went kaboom, they apparently managed to license not only an incredibly large number of medicines but also the chemical components most of them are made up of.

Out of the deceptively small list of financially and politically influential families you’ve managed to dig up (which included, to your surprise, Crocker, which is unnerving because you _know_ Jane Crocker and you never had any idea she already owned more planets when she was just a tod in her diapers than you ever owned shoes in your lifetime; and also because you never really considered humanity as one of the actual power players on the intergalactic scope), the Ampora name comes up as the most financially secure, as well as the only one completely politically neutral.

And through some strange whim of fate, as well as some fortune in familial connections, you’ve landed the job as bodyguard to the youngest scion of the Ampora family, who is, apparently, through old Lusca traditions, also the prince heir to his family’s massive empire.

Because that’s not intimidating at all.

It’s not really that surprising, knowing this, that the transport to Ancha your new employer sprung on you is a touch more on the sophisticated side than you are used to. While most of the people on the flight, which you gather is some sort of premium trip, are polite enough not to stare openly, you feel drastically underdressed.

You are wearing a fucking _suit_ , and you are still feeling feeling underdressed.

Ancha is known for it’s extravagance, that much you know. It’s Space Vegas if Space Vegas had less hookers (prostitution is apparently banned on-planet) and more very fancy red carpet events. Tour guidebooks like calling it ‘glamorous’ or ‘exclusive’, and considering you’re pretty sure you could buy your own spaceship for the same price just travelling there costs you think you can see where the exclusivity is coming from.

But above all of that, Ancha is the cradle of power from which the Ampora dynasty operates. It’s smack dab in the centre of Ampora owned space, surrounded by colonised planets protected by government-funded armies belonging to governments funded by Amporas. Ancha itself has a government-funded army, one of the most lauded automatical defense systems _and_ some kind of privately funded special protection, the details on which are too suspiciously vague to look entirely legal.

It’s quite a ways from your usual low-end manual labour class visitation spots, and you’re not sure what you are supposed to expect.

You readjust yourself in your comfy lounge chair and take another sip of your coffee as you look at the stars passing by faster than light outside of the ship. Whatever, you’ll worry about all of that when you get there. You’ve already agreed to the job, so there’s not much that doubting things now would change.

\---

It’s been a little over eight years since you’ve actually seen your brother in the flesh, and he is a _lot_ shorter than you remember him being. You’d like to credit some deep existential metamorphosis, say it’s because seeing more of the universe has changed your perspective or something like that, but if you’re honest it’s probably just that you’ve stopped slouching.

He’s also dressed a lot better than you’ve ever noticed him being. You remember him as a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy with a preference for accessories handpicked to make him look like as much of a douche as possible, but right now he actually looks presentable. More presentable than you, actually, considering his outfit looks tailored to fit and expensive down to the last seam, if somewhat on the more casual side.

Not for the first time today your suit feels two sizes too big and three too small at the same time. You _like_ formalwear, you really do. There is nothing that makes you flaunt your ass like an overgrown peacock the way putting on a well-tailored blazer over a nice blouse does. But considering your general line of work over the past couple of years has floundered between interplanetary delivery boy and ‘that one asshole on the docks who hauls heavy cargo’, getting your only suit refitted has not been very high on your list of priorities.

Of course clothes don’t always make the man, as Bro demonstrates when he reaches his hand out in greeting only to dodge your brofist and dive straight for your hair, messing it up as best he can in the split second he has before you squawk like a scorned chicken and ninja your way to the other side of the room, frantically soothing your poor, abused locks.

You glare at him, maybe a little vindicated about the sudden familiar treatment after his self-imposed exile, and try to fix your hair best you can with only your reflection in a window to aid you. The darkness outside helps, but it only helps to let you see that your hair has not recovered from it’s trauma and that, without the assistance of tools and product, the fritz your Bro has mussed it back into will probably not subside on it’s own.

In your head Bro is tall, imposing and stone-faced; the adult of all adults. He taught you swordplay and martial arts, he taught you not to take anyone’s shit, he taught you responsibility is for chumps and he taught you that whoever gets the nice-brand noodles out of the grocery bag first gets to eat them, but only if he can protect them from other interested parties throughout the duration of the dreaded three minutes it takes to get them squishy.

The reality has a vividity to him that memory doesn’t do justice. When he laughs at you he does so without holding back. You watch his shoulders shake and notice there are lines next to his mouth and the corners of his eye that were not there before. Your childhood guardian was cold, too young for raising children but too old to justify acting the way he did. He smiled with the same reservation Dirk does now, a rare expression on an otherwise blank slate. 

The contrast with the man in front of you is stark and disorienting. 

He walks over to you and punches you in the shoulder lightly, as far as anything likely to leave bruises can be considered ‘light’, and you’re not really sure how to think of being treated like a bro instead of a brother. Maybe, you think, he’s not really sure of what to do with himself either.

“C’mon, let’s go,” he tells you as he turns around with a flourish and a weird little bow, motioning for you to come along. Then, belatedly, he seems to realise that you are an adult and are going to be wanting more information than that. “You’re staying at my place for the mo’. Tomorrow’s the interview, but y’got my recommendation so you’re good. When you’ve got the job you’re getting a room of your own, I think.”

Apparently you are not going to be doing the long time no see’s or the how have you beens. You suppose that suits you just fine while you’re still trying to figure out where you and Bro stand.

\---

It’s not quite that no attempts at small-talk are made on your way to the Ampora villa, but conversation is stilted and awkward and you’re tired from a two-day trip and slightly overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of Ancha, which is not quite like any planet you’ve been to at all.

You’re heading to your destination in a small but fancy black hoover that is inconspicuous enough for you to assume it’s probably not Bro’s, unless he’s changed his preferences from the top down over the years or it is some kind of bodyguard thing. It zooms through what apparently counts as local back alleys in near-silence.

You weren’t much of a cars kind of guy on earth, and your opinion on whatever local transportation you come by tends to not really judge beyond how fast it can get you to your destination and how agreeable your stomach is going to be to it’s execution of duty, but even you can appreciate that where hoovers are notorious for making a fuckton of noise, this one is almost disquietingly silent.

While you’re not exactly being toured down the scenic route, nothing’s stopping you from taking in your surroundings. You can see the cultural highlights blinking at you from a distance, not-quite-neon winking at you flavoured the exact kind of tacky that ancha seems to favour, where everything is toned down _just_ enough to not feel overly in-your face until you take a look at the details and realise everything is overcrafted and expensive.

You’ve grown so used to chrome and glass over the years in spaceports that it is odd to come across a planet that favours low-rise buildings and organic materials even in it’s intergalactic trade centre. On the crawler here you already learned that Ancha doesn’t have confined cities or living areas to keep it’s populace in one place, but you are still in the most heavily populated area of the planet and the lack of any kind of towering skyline is foreign to you.

Instead there are lush gardens and parks with villas scattered throughout the endless green, a calm, idyllic scenery only broken by the occasional brightly lit dome-shaped hotspots. Casinos, entertainment parks, shopping centres; in the darkness of the night they are winking, seductive eye-catchers in a world that seems otherwise still and tranquil. 

Your destination is a large, rounded building that seems to be built to look like it is slowly emerging out of the lake it is built on. Its structure is deeply ingrained with the surrounding garden, a mess of winding outdoor pathways, stairways and waterfalls, and you’re a little ashamed to confess it takes you a moment to realise that the sheer amount of water involved in the landscaping most likely has to do with the fact that your employer is a Lusca rather than some odd preferential treatment.

Who can blame an aquatic species for having a preference for their natural environment?

It’ll be interesting to see Ancha by daylight, you think as you step out of the hoover. Local architecture seems to be less about hiding things like garages away underground or inside buildings, and more about covering everything in layers upon layers of plants. A neatly woven net of wide-leaved plants coils over the parking space, clearly well-tended. Jade would be in love.

You follow your Bro through the garden over some winding pathways leading to what you are assuming is a servant’s entrance of sorts in what you hope is a companionable silence, but what feels mostly awkward. What few attempts you’ve made at conversation fell flat pretty fast, and you’re just not sure if you and Bro can idly talk about nothing at all while you’re still floundering in between falling back on old familiarity and accepting that you’re missing almost every piece of current vital information on the man next to you.

Bro doesn’t give you much of an opportunity to look around inside, and considering you are supposed to be working here for the near future you suppose that’s not so strange. The house seems smaller than you expected as you trail after him, trying to match his brusque, goal-oriented pace. 

It’s not a very long trek. The side-entrance you used lead into the kitchen, which turns out to be directly attached to the main ground-floor hallway, where the entrance to Bro’s room is hiding right behind one of two massive staircases.

“I am considering screaming like a little girl and running for the hills,” you tell him dryly once you realise your mistake in entering the room. It’s not an especially large space but Bro has thoroughly made it his, and the beady eyes of a pair of smuppets stare at you from the couch where they sit next to one another, noses gently touching.

You are fairly certain you are supposed to be sleeping on that couch.

Bro gives you a look the judgemental weight of which penetrates even his stupid pointy shades and walks over to the couch to gently cradle his pair of smuppets in his arms. Their noses caress one another scandalously. You feel very tired all of a sudden.

“So, the interview is what, tomorrow morning?” you ask Bro, if only to derail from the subject of smuppets. You got tired of that angle right around the time you hit puberty, and re-opening that particular avenue of conversation is the literal last thing you want to do.

Bro hums in agreement. “Real early morning yeah. Bossman is never around for long, so you got shoved in the earliest slot on the schedule since you’re in the house already anyways. Hey, I gotta check that Cro hasn’t killed himself in the what, hour and a half I’ve been gone. Want me to bring you something back? Coffee? Something stronger? I can check for AJ, but you’re probably gonna have to ask requisitions about it if you want anything imported.”

“Coffee’s fine.”

You’re not looking forward to the rest of the evening.

\---

Spending a night in the same room as your Bro is not your idea of fun. On top of having to deal with his unique brand of asshole (you had _almost_ purged Lil’ Cal’s vacant, piercing stare from your nightmares, goddamnit) the guy is a neurotic twat. 

You’d never really noticed it before, maybe because teen Dave had better things to do than behaviour policing his cousin slash legal guardian slash adoptive brotherfather, but Bro’s twitchiness gets on your nerves enough that you’re sorely tempted to just knock him out flat after two hours of his constant getting up and walking around while you try to sleep.

It’s probably a good thing you’re wearing shades, because combined with the travel dreck you’re still feeling after your two-day adventure spent in faster than light travel you’re pretty sure you’re nearing panda tier on the scale of ‘boss’ to ‘beat’ by the time Bro points you to your employer to be’s office.

It strikes you that it might be kind of a social faux-pas not to know your potential new boss’ first name about three seconds too late. You’ve already knocked, so there’s no running back to kick Bro in the back of the head and demand information now. 

The door is opened by a short, stocky reptilian you quickly peg as an Antruscian who is dressed similarly to the way your Bro was: well-tailored, but just casual enough that she -you’re pretty sure it’s the female Antrusces who wear the warpaint, but not quite sure enough that you’d take any bets on it- would not be mistaken for business folk. 

You’re going to assume this would be Ampora senior’s personal bodyguard. 

Your assumption is proven correct when she silently (you recall something about Antrusces being mute, or incapable of producing the kind of noises the translator needs or something like that) slips around you and looks you over top to bottom. There is absolutely no way to tell whether this is part of the interview or if she is just checking for weapons, so you stand around like a tool and try not to fidget until she gives you a solemn nod and lets you go inside. 

As a species, Lusca are not numerous. You’ve seen a few come by in vids during your lifetime, but due to what is only generally described as ‘breeding complications’ they’ve only recently crawled out of near-extinction and it shows in their level of representation in media.

This leaves you grossly underprepared for how _human_ your boss to be looks. When you enter, Mr. Ampora is seated on the couch and sipping something that does not look like anything you recognise from a large mug while he looks over some digipads. 

He is a tall man, at least by human standards, and seems to be fitting most human standards beyond that; two arms, two legs, one head with a face sporting two eyes and ears, one nose and a mouth. No eyebrows though, even if he does have a neatly styled mop of pitch black hair on top of his head. His limbs look normal enough, with five-fingered hands and unremarkably sized feet, even if he does look somewhat elongated at the neck and forearms.

His eyes flicker over towards you, and you try not to flinch as he gives you a slow once-over. You’re not sure if it’s the bluish green hue of the ambient light but his skin looks pale as death, and it makes his dark eyes look more menacing than probably intended. 

There is a moment of silence where you wonder if maybe this is where you’re supposed to say your greetings, but then Ampora puts his digipad down on the coffee table and waves you in.

“Sit,” he tells you with an oddly breathy voice that is a little higher in pitch than you would expect from a guy you’re pretty sure is at least a full head taller than you. “Eridan isn’t here yet, but I’m sure he will show his face eventually.” 

There is an interesting lilt to his v and w noises and you’re silently curious if that’s a translator thing or some kind of accent, but you figure that is probably not the right kind of tangent to start on during a job interview. Instead of commenting on it you take a seat on the couch across the coffee table from him and try not to wince when the plush below your ass gives way more than you were expecting, almost causing you to lose your balance.

Ampora leans forward and laces his fingers together in front of him, which does absolutely nothing to alleviate the sense of saturday morning cartoon villain vampire you got from him in the first place, not in the least because of the massive scars running down his face. Although, you have to admit, a very well-dressed, scarred up cartoon vampire villain. With fins sticking out from his ears and forearms and a love for gold that has been thoroughly indulged in.

Okay maybe vampire isn’t really the right mythological comparison, but it’s pretty hard to look past the skin which, in the current light, looks as close to stark white as it gets. 

“Your brother has told me a lot about your skills as a swordsman,” he starts. You’re considering telling him that you and Bro are not actually brothers but cousins, but then you figure you don’t know much about Lusca family structures anyhow so maybe Bro actually used the term ‘brother’ for culturally sensitive reasons rather than just to feed whatever weird family image ideal he’s got stuck in his head.

You nod, not sure what to say in response, and that seems to be enough to please Ampora, who continues on. “We’ve worked generations to make Ancha one of the safest places in the universe, but that does not completely eliminate the possibility of people intending harm to my nephew’s person crossing his path. Plus, the likelihood that he will-”

His… Nephew? You are _definitely_ going to have to grill Bro on your charge’s family structure later.

“-have to leave the safety of the more guarded areas of the galaxy at times as a representative of the company and brand name is very high. For all that we have objectively few enemies because of our politically neutral alignment, this is not a safe job. You understand the risks you would take as a personal guardian to a household name?”

You nod and open your mouth to respond. Bro’d made some vague mention that he got good use out of the massive amounts of martial art skills he passed down to you during your teens when he first comm’d you about the job, along with a douchey offhand comment that he probably would have contacted Dirk, who’d been the better swordsman when the two of you were still suffering under Bro’s tutelage, except he actually had a life to attend to so you would have to do.

Before you can say anything the door slams open and you catch your first actual view of Eridan Ampora, dramatically silhouetted in front of the brighter hallway lights.

You don’t get much of an opportunity to consider his dramatic entrance as he strides into the room with an angry, solid gait that you think could probably make a catwalk model jealous if only his expression said ‘better than you but too good to say so to your face’ rather than ‘thunder clouds moving in, more news at eleven’, slamming the door behind him with a bang.

You were warned, you tell yourself as you try not to look too put off. You were warned that Eridan Ampora was going to be a handful, and that he was not going to be happy with your being here. You are going to be stuck babysitting an alien teenaged manchild with anger management issues and a preference for grand gestures, and you’ve only yourself to blame.

“Which part of ‘I do not _need_ another one of your pet hounds hangin’ off my ass at all times’ did you not understand? Why do you keep pullin’ this BS on me?” he all but shrieks at his uncle(?), and yes, that is definitely an acronym he is fully spelling out there. You’re already feeling a headache coming up.

“You’re embarrassing yourself,” Ampora the elder bites back with a sudden venom you wouldn’t have expected from a man with his earlier, more professional facade. “Sit down, boy, and for the goddess’ sake, stop questioning my judgement. If I say you need a bodyguard, you’re getting a bodyguard so quit yapping and stop behaving like a child.”

“Maybe I’d stop ‘behavin’ like a child’-,” you don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone using air quotes quite so passionately. You kind of want to sit this guy down and tell him to cool it on the theatrics, because he looks like a total tool. “-if you stopped treatin’ me like I’m about to trip off a’ the next best set a’ stairs an’ instantly break my fuckin’ assbone!”

You have to try really hard to bite back your commentary on that particular tangent, because the stairs joke is probably getting stale by now. Also you’re still supposed to be at a job interview.

“Damnit Eridan, this is _not_ a maturity contest! We’ve had this conversation before. Unless you suddenly attain immortality or magical instant regeneration abilities I will not let you irresponsibly run about without anyone watching your back. Now sit the _fuck_ down while I talk to Strider’s younger sibling.” Ampora senior is sounding put out, but his face has remained oddly neutral. “An interview, I might add, that I wouldn’t be having at all if you stopped throwing tantrums every time I try to find you protection and just did as you were told.”

You are now apparently in the middle of a soap opera. Somewhere someone laughs at your misery.

“ _I am an adult!_ ” Eridan screeches back while stomping his foot and looking anything but. “I know you’ve got micromanagement issues but cockfuckin’ herrings, get your stinkin’ fingers out of my business!”

“As long as I’m the family patriarch and you’re living under _my_ roof, I get to decide what is good for you, legal adult or no.” Uncle Ampora is sounding tortured and worn, and you wonder exactly how often they have had this argument and if it sounds this ridiculous every single time. “And I say you’re getting a new bodyguard, and it’s probably going to be this one. End of the story.”

Eridan looks like he is going to protest, but you decide to step in before things devolve into high-strung sitcom-style family arguments because you are just flat out not down for that kind of bullshit without the promise of a paycheck to pull you through it. “Yo, I don’t mean to interrupt this absolutely fascinating verbal annihilation session, but I’m kind of in the middle of an interview here? It’d be really ace if you’d keep your reign of terror off until I’ve signed the forms and everything.”

Straightening his shoulders to look even taller than he already is -and he is taller than you anyhow, you can tell as much even while sitting down- Eridan turns to face you. His mouth is already open in what no doubt is going to be a truly majestic sling of curses of epic proportions when he suddenly pauses. His fins, both the ones on his ears and the ones on his forearms, flare from a pale, muddy pink into a bright purple and he blinks at you like he’s only just realised you’re there.

He can’t actually only just have realised this, you are aware. The sole reason he came here at all was to prevent you, specifically, from getting hired today. Unless he has some type of acute memory issues you’re not aware of yet there should be no reason for him to gape at you like you are some exotic type of animal newly displayed at a zoo.

You’re still waiting for the proverbial bombshell to drop and the unavoidable explosion afterwards when his shoulders slump and the dark, angry mood that he brought into the room with him dissipates like snow in the earth-summer sun. 

He huffs at you, and without even giving you the chance to properly process what is happening he has turned on his heels and is storming out of the room. 

Ampora senior stares at the door with a bemused expression for almost half a minute before he turns back to you with a surprisingly pleasant expression on his face, all things considered. “Well then, where were we? Ah, yes, I was going to explain some of the terms of the job to you-”

You have absolutely no idea what just happened, but you have the faint sense that you just landed yourself a job.

\---

An hour and a half later you have waived away a significant portion of your private life, signed non-disclosure forms on subjects you think you’re just not going to be thinking about too much and combed through the fine-print of your contract, and now you have made your way onto the incredibly generous Ampora payroll. Even if it’s only a month-long trial period, the compensation you’ll be receiving is, you think, enough even for having to deal with the haughty prince of Ancha. 

(Eridan is not actually royalty, of course, but the way you’re understanding it Ancha’s governing body is stuffed practically entirely in the Amporas’ pockets anyhow, so considering him a prince hardly even feels like an exaggeration.)

Ampora senior’s bodyguard, who you learn is called Maeichi Tassan Lesreus (you’re not sure if that’s her full name or if her species just favors long-ass personal names because they don’t need to bother pronouncing them anyways, but you’re sticking with calling her Maeichi), shows you around the villa in a surprisingly amicable silence where she points at anything she deems important for you to see and then waits around patiently until you figure out the relevance of whatever she is pointing at through a game of ‘if this button explodes the known universe and everything in it please let me know _before_ rather than after I push it to try and find out’.

The similarities between her outfit and Bro’s are, predictably, not coincidental. She takes you to ‘Requisitions’, which is really just an unassuming looking monitor hidden halfway inside of a hallway plant and makes you figure out your intergalactic measurement specifics in an epic showdown with a blank measuring tape that apparently works with some kind of scanner. Apparently Amporas like their deliveries fast, because the display tells you your uniform will arrive the next day.

After she has thoroughly stomped your ego into the floor, now frail due to it’s apparent lack of technological mastery after it’s merciless defeat at the wiles of the not-quite-traditional measuring tape, she shows you how to input special food requests, and where to get non-standard intergalactic wares. It’s probably going to be a while before you’ll fail to find the fact that apple juice is listed under “exotic wares” amusing. 

Then you make a detour through the kitchen, where you try to figure out the differences in packaging between foods meant for consumption by different species. It’s at least somewhat of a comfort to learn that nothing your boss and his family puts into their mouths on daily basis is especially harmful or deadly to your person. 

(Apparently what Maeichi eats is very much _not_ for human consumption, however. She shows it to you, and considering it looks like it had scales sharp as daggers when it was still alive, you are not surprised.)

You’re not sure whether to be amused or annoyed that most of the human foods in stock at present are typical Bro foods, but you are very certain that you are going to be ordering something more nutritious the moment you can. If there’s one thing you’ve learned from years of low-end jobs it’s to take whatever chance to eat real people food you can get, and you’re not about to waste the free pass you’ve got to stock food on your boss’ paycheck.

The tour ends in front of the door directly across the hallway from Bro’s, where you’ll be living for the foreseeable future. She sees you off with a little wave as she heads back to do whatever it is the bossman’s bodyguard does while he is holed up on his study.

Not surprisingly, your room turns out to be a slightly more sparse mirror of the room you spent the last night in. Piled on the bed are a number of educational pamphlets, house guidelines and instruction manuals, but other than that the room is a blank slate for you to do whatever with. 

For all that it can’t have been empty for long, if the earlier argument was anything to go by, there are no real signs of previous inhabitants. No tacks stuck in the wall, no stains on the carpet. But then, if the cleanup crew is paid even a smidgen of the kind of compensation you're getting, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that they’re good at their job.

There is a knock on the door.

Maeichi went back to work and the only other person you know in the house is your Bro, which means there is a theoretical chance the only things behind the door are going to be Cal and a camera, but you’re technically on the clock now so you carefully slide the door open to greet your visitor.

You blink.

When you’d told Eridan that you’d appreciate it if he held off on terrorising you until you’d signed a contract you hadn’t really expected him to appear on your doorstep within the hour. 

In the bright hallway lights it becomes obvious that it isn’t just that your new charge is pale; his skin is very much as pure white as they come, with a slightly velvet shine to it. His fins are still a vibrant purple rather than the rosy pink they’d been before, and he is looking at you with large, hauntingly dark eyes.

His face is set in a determined grimace, but he isn’t actually saying anything and you’re not entirely sure what to do. Technically you’re his bodyguard, but unless a very dangerous brand of space-cockroach broke out in the last twenty minutes or so, you’re pretty sure there isn’t any actual disaster he needs protecting from.

“Can I, uh, help you?” you ask him when it becomes obvious he isn’t actually going to say or do anything other than flounder in your doorway silently. 

He blinks owlishly, the inky black of his sclera still clearly visible even when his eyelids are closed, and his earfins twitch helplessly. You really hope this isn’t some kind of pilot-flagging ear language that you’re going to have to be learning. 

“Uh,” he starts dumbly, “I was thinkin’ I could possibly, like, help you? Settle in, or somethin’?” It looks like it almost physically pains him to ask.

What.

“What?”

His fingers twitch and he gives you a stern look, but you’re still too busy trying to figure out why he is here at all to really consider what his face is doing. Maybe he is trying to seize you up to think of a better battle-plan to bully you out of his hair sooner?

But then, you’re supposed to be this guy’s bodyguard. You’re going to be spending an uncomfortable amount of time near him anyways, so if he’s actually trying to play nice it’s probably for the better if you try to be sensitive to his explosive temper and play along. You think?

“Thanks for the offer man, but I’ve seriously only got one suitcase of stuff to unload, and it’s in Bro’s room so all I need to do is go get it. Unless you want to walk with me, or whatever.” Yes, walk with me, you think. Accompany me on the truly daunting trek spanning the hallway. 

He looks surprised, and maybe a little bewildered. “Bro?”

It takes you good few seconds to decipher that that is a ‘who’ kind of question. Because you are honestly not sure what it means that he is asking at all, you just silently point over his shoulder, to the doorway across the hall from yours. 

“Oh, you mean Strider,” he says sounding vaguely disappointed, and you feel a headache setting in. This has the potential to turn very confusing very fast.

“You know, if you’re going to call both him and me just ‘Strider’ even to each other this is probably going to devolve into something incredibly dumb and somewhat exasperating sometime real soon. Mistakes will be made. Someone will cry a single unmanly tear. It will not be awesome at all.” 

And that is where you hit your first cultural rough patch.

It’s become somewhat of a tradition, over the years, that no matter how long you study any kind of new culture or species you’re going to be interacting with, you will always make a complete ass of yourself at least once. Being culturally insensitive can take many shapes and forms, as you’ve learned over many years of swapping stories between travellers and hitchhikers during commute, but you’ve always had a knack for finding the one innocuous little tidbit that happens to be highly offensive to whatever alien species you are dealing with.

The advantage to being a non-local in a multicultural universe rich in intergalactic travel is that you can play the unknowing alien card to soothe over hurt feelings most of the time. You love the unknowing alien card. It is your best friend, through thick and thin, and you would make sweet love to it if only you swung that way. Sadly for the unknowing alien card, however, your minimum requirement for any romantic entanglement is a pulse (and reproductive organs that are no direct threat to yours, but that is a memory you’d rather not waste too much thought on).

You think that whatever it is you said seems to have caused some degree of hurt feelings this time, because something in the way his inky black eyes widen reminds you of small mammals seeking an escape to lick their wounds in the aftermath. His earfins are drooping slightly, and you’re not sure when it started but they seem to be gradually fading from their initial vibrancy to a muddy lavender colour. 

But luscans are rare, and information on their customs isn’t exactly written on the walls, being scarce to the extent that you’ve no idea where the root of the offense even lies. Or, for that matter, why someone you assumed was predetermined to hate your guts is acting like you kicked his favourite baby whatever kind of pet animals are kept around here instead of running to daddy to tell on you for being a douche.

It’s not like you pride yourself on being especially professional or having the best work ethic, but after a few seconds of watching shrinking violet Eridan you decide that you should probably at least try not to burn any bridges just yet. 

“I’m not entirely sure how, but I think I just pulled a stupid and crammed my foot down my own throat, yeah? So how about we rewind and replay this whole shebang because I think we’ve skipped a couple of steps here.” You hold out your hand towards him. “Dave Strider, interplanetary entrepreneur to various degrees of success and your personal meatshield for the foreseeable future. Sup?”

The moments after you realise that maybe offering a human greeting might not have been your best move just then are torturous, but after a quizzical look that comes with a specific flavour of subtext you can’t quite place, Eridan reaches out and gives you a weak handshake. You are sorely tempted to squeeze down on his hand because Bro raised you to judge people by flimsy handshakes, but you are not sure how solid his bone structure is and you’re pretty sure hitting off your career by breaking your charge’s hand is probably a bad idea.

It takes a while for things to click, but he slowly seems to be reaching the conclusion that you’re expecting an introduction back. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, hand still sort of limply clamped around yours and then apparently figures out what to say. 

“Eridan Ampora, the scion of the Ampora bloodline. I can call you Dave though, right?” his fins have regained some of their colour around the edges. You really need to figure out what’s up with the rainbow dumbo signal code because you are missing social cues by the boatloads.

It is the most pretentious introduction you’ve ever heard and it tells you absolutely nothing you didn’t already know, but you know an olive branch when you see one. Even if it is an awkward, tragically plucked one that has seen things that it will never be able to move on from.

The professional thing to do now if you were on earth would be decline and hope it would put up some kind of workplace barrier to keep things from going to shit, but you’re still not sure what it was you initially said that caused offense and you’re pretty piss poor at formalities anyhow, so you shrug your shoulders amicably. “Sure thing, keeps the double Strider heat from boiling over, too. I’m figuring the right form of address from my side here is supposed to be ‘sir’, yeah?”

The hand, which had been resting in yours in a slightly awkward fashion long beyond any point where it was possible to retract your arm without drawing attention to your discomfort, is snatched back with a sudden vehemence that is your only warning to little prince attitude problem’s shift in moods.

He gives you a flat, judgemental glare of the type that elderly ladies give small children when they turn out to not have a full grasp of current politics and advanced mathematics and crosses his arms over his chest, doing a funky little wrist-bendy thing to prevent the fins running from his mid-forearm to his elbow from getting caught in an awkward angle. “Eridan. My name is Eridan. Call me sir all you want but don’t refer to me the way you would the old man you rude lemurkin.”

Lemurkin. You’re not even sure what that means in this particular context, but you think it’s probably supposed to be insulting. You wonder how poorly it would be received if you tracked down some kind of physical tome on cultural sensitivity and the importance of both sides making an attempt, and then hit him in the face with it. Probably not very well.

Instead of doing anything drastic, you breathe out through your nose, resist the temptation to rub the bridge of your nose just in case he is culturally savvy enough to recognise human exasperation and straighten your shoulders. “Right, Eridan, sir. So did you wanna brave the daunting trek across the hallway with me or…?”

He steps aside with the same kind of dramatic flourish he’d put on display when waltzing into the bossman’s office and you waste no time striding past him.

You’re just about done with weird cross-cultural introduction sequences for the day.

\---

It’s not that the couch in your Bro’s room was especially uncomfortable, because you’ve slept on far worse than a couch with a bit of an uncomfortably wide gap between the seating pillows, but it just doesn’t hold a candle to sleeping in your own, incredibly cozy waterbed (You think you might be able to bring it up in your shriveled little heart to forgive their water fetish when it comes to stuff like this. You’re generous like that.) located in a room that has no Bro in it to disturb you with his bizarre neuroses.

This doesn’t mean you’re actually sleeping easily, or especially well. It’s been a long day and turning the lights down isn’t enough to halt the flow of thoughts churning through your head at breakneck speed, so you lie on your back with your hands laced behind your head and stare at the ceiling.

Eridan spent the rest of your first afternoon hovering around you like a spooked horse, albeit one with the incessant need to make haughty remarks at absolutely everything, and you can’t help but wonder if his choices in vocabulary sound as garbled in his home language as they do after being run through the translator, because you just don’t think ‘vile rudimentary brack muckslump tripe’ describes the earth’s oceans very well for all that you wouldn’t defend it’s whistle-cleanness. 

In the end you never did get the opportunity to wrangle more information from your Bro, because by the time you managed to escape Eridan’s plans to dominate your afternoon with his supreme reign of bizarre habits, your cousin and the other alien fishprince, Cronus, were apparently already on a crawler to an entirely different system for business. With it’s odd, deep voice the requisition station, which also functions as a general information distribution station, informed you they weren’t due back for another two months.

You’re trying not to feel too put out by that, you really are. But it was Bro who decided to shuttle you here in the first place, and while you understand the call of duty and the fact that he can’t always stick around and hold your hand as he walks you through things because you’re both adults now, you still would have appreciated some kind of warning that you were going to be nosediving headfirst into rich people madness on your own. A goddamn note would have sufficed.

In the back of your head lives a sullen eighteen-years-old who dared to hope that maybe contacting you was a first step toward mending the bridges Bro burnt when he vanished off the surface of earth, leaving only an apartment with three years of rent paid ahead of time and a bunch of junk behind, nothing to even hint at the why or the where until Dirk managed to get a hold of his comm almost two years later. 

But of course it would be too much for Bro to realise that sometimes being family means leaving a post-it note on a doorway or a date scribbled in the margins. Of course it would be too much to assume that just because you’re technically living in the same house now anything would change or that you’d magically become a family again. 

You have no idea where you and Bro even stand anymore at all, and it’s weighing on you. You kind of want to dial Dirk, get his thoughts on the matter, but it’s four in the morning in Houston and you don’t want to deal with AR’s bullshit, even if you’ve had to grudgingly accept him as an honorary Strider. 

Reaching out to your bedside you fish the brand new comm you’ve been supplied with from your nightstand and twirl it around in between your fingers. Of course it’s not really yours until you sign something definite, but it’s still kind of a marvel to have in your hands what you’ve been mooning over for so long: a comm with a universal contract. Free access to people who you’ve, for the past couple of years, only been in contact with via spaceport terminals because the comm network was too cost heavy.

Maybe the voice of an old friend would get the old grudges weighing down your shoulders to lift enough that you can sleep tonight.

You put on your shades, and the glasses light up with a soft, non-obtrusive light. Neural tech makes you somewhat uncomfortable because you’ve always been more of a touch display and buttons kind of guy, but the way the shapes on the screen jump to fit your needs at lightning speed is, you gotta admit, pretty impressive.

Most of your contacts are grayed out, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. You credit the sullen feeling in your stomach to the long day behind you and try to swallow past it as you scroll by Rose, John and Jade’s grayed out usernames. They’re adults, with work hours and social lives and sleep schedules. Of course they can’t always be there to comfort you when you’re having a boo hoo. 

You’re not making yourself feel any better.

There are several names blinking in colour, but they’re casual acquaintances you’d really rather not talk to outside of some irregular IM smalltalk, so you scroll through the list apathetically. 

You must be more tired than you thought, because it takes you a good three seconds of staring at the bright cyan on the bottom of the list before you realise whose name you’re looking at, and then you find you’ve dialed audioconnect before even really realising. Damn neural tech.

“Dave Strider?” the voice on the other side asks carefully, a warm and nostalgic voice that fills you with exactly the kind of fondness you needed.

“Hey there hot momma,” you greet her, voice as steady as you dare in a room you don’t know at two in the night. “Been a while, huh?”

The little laugh you get in return has a bit of a nervous undertone, and you can’t blame her for that. You haven’t openly sought her out in years, not since your embarrassing rejection and the couple of stupid episodes that came with that. “I can tell you’re charming as ever, Mister Strider! Was there something you needed?” 

You shift your pillow so you’re sitting up a little while you figure out what to say to that. What you really wanted was to unload your Broblems on someone else, but your contact with Jane has been limited to terse hellos and how are yous for so long now that it feels unfair to use her like that, not while you can’t even recall the last memorable anything having occurred in her life. So instead you shrug a shrug she won’t be able to hear and relax.

“Nah, not really. Just figured it’s about time we caught up, yeah?”

\---

Jane has never really been one of _your_ friends insomuch as she was more one of Dirk’s buddies who liked to stay over for dinner and cook the lot of you dessert while maintaining a faux innocent facade as Strider after Strider tumbled headfirst into one of many boobytraps and pranks that magically appeared throughout the apartment whenever she happened to be over for any given amount of time.

As a teenager you were sorely convinced she was perfection, the antithesis of failed first love gone best friend Jade Harley. She was a solid presence in your life, neither so obtrusive you could grow tired of her being around or so absent that you could miss her, and in the months nearing your eighteenth birthday there was a period where you’d almost convinced yourself that you stood a chance. You’d give her flowers, she’d blush and grin at you and you believed, for a few short months, that you were getting somewhere.

Then Bro vanished and you spent the next weeks acting like a douchebag on grade-a dickmunch steroids, wherein the a stood for asshole, taking out your frustrations on everyone around you. Needless to say it kicked that particular venture in the teeth.

Hindsight, 20/20 in surreptitious stares thrown over your shoulder whenever you feel up to facing your own mistakes, tells you it wouldn’t have lasted anyway. For all that you held the little candlefire romance close to your heart for almost two years, most of what you loved about Jane Crocker was enclosed in the space between your ears or hiding in the corners of an apartment that was deceptively easy to leave behind.

Now, as you listen to her happily chattering on about company parties and goings-on on and around earth you can’t help but marvel about how little of the real Jane you actually knew.

“-and of course he never did figure out what poor servant ‘misjudged their importance in the face of their political views’ in order to place the spring under his plate,” Jane finishes telling you the story of how she pranked an apparently very important diplomat with an elaborate name you can’t be assed to remember. “And now you’re going to tell me what brought the social call on.”

Her voice has a commanding tone to it you don’t remember from days long past, and you suppose being a space-baroness has solidified the steel in her spine you always knew was there. 

You sigh. “It’s nothing, really. Just… homesick, I guess.” It’s not quite the right word; you’re not longing for a specific place because it’s been a long time since you’ve had a place you wanted to actually _stay_ , but there is a sense of groundedness that you’re missing and on nights like these it’s what makes the universe look so much bigger than it needs to be. 

Jane makes a thoughtful humming noise. “Considering returning to earth, perhaps? I’m sure Dirk would be very happy to have you back home. I mean, he has his robots to keep him company of course, but…”

It’s a nice sentiment. You don’t think its quite true, because Dirk has his own life now and while he wouldn’t kick you out on the curb or anything like that you just don’t think there’s a place for you to settle there anymore, not the way there was when you were still a registered inhabitant of planet earth, but you appreciate the thought.

“Nah, it’s cool sister. Not that kind of homesickness. Besides, I’ve just started a new job. Bit early to kick the cradle and run for the stars, yeah?” You already miss the canorous sound of her mindless chatter to keep your mind focused, but Jane isn’t just your entertainment for the night and you suppose you owe her some honesty for not just hanging up on you.

“You started a new job?” she asks, sounding genuinely curious. “Your brother told me you’ve become quite the handyman over the years. What kind of adventure is keeping the illustrious Mister Strider the younger busy this time, then?”

You snort, trying to imagine Dirk talking to her about your space expeditions and low-wage bullshit line of work and failing. You don’t think an engineering genius and a baroness would quite be able to capture the experience in all its gloryless existence. In a sense, you think as you take in the high-end design of the room around you, for all that you are galaxies apart you are now closer to Jane on the social ladder than you have ever been before in your life. 

“Bro landed me a job at his super special, extremely secret workplace that must not be named. I’m currently stand-in bodyguard for Eridan Ampora until such a time as I sign a long-term contract or get chased off by his terrible terribleness,” you tell her. Bro always made it sound like his job was something he couldn’t talk about, but you’ve read the contract and waivers and come to the conclusion that he was mostly just being a dick. Again. 

To your surprise Jane begins to laugh. It’s the same full body-and-soul laugh you remember from teenagerhood, and for three seconds you are in love again. Then your mind catches up with the present and you can’t help but wonder if she’s laughing at you. 

“Oh dear, oh dear,” she hiccups in between giggles. “Oh dear, Bro Strider works for _that_ bunch.” Because the universe has only so many people who own planets, and you don’t know why it surprises you that they would somehow know each other. “Well that is just extraordinary. And you work for Eridan now? Oh goodness, what do you think, isn’t he just a special unicorn?”

You’re not sure if ‘unicorn’ is the word you would have used to describe the overlord of dramatics, and you open your mouth to say so but then you remember his bizarre afternoon visit, the wide-eyed tragedy that wibbled in your doorway because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut long enough to remember human customs might not fall well, and you think you maybe see what she’s talking about. Still.

“I would’ve gone with prince instead. Little lordling of fancy flourish. Think I might have spotted a little unicorn in there though. But it’s only my first day. I’ve got time to figure out whether I’m dealing with a prince or a unicorn yet.” And you do; you’ve got a month just for that. You wonder if you could make a game out of it.

Jane lets out another warm giggle and you can almost imagine the sparkle in those light blue eyes of hers while you wonder why it took you so long to try and talk to her again. “Well, I think you might be happily surprised just yet. Please do keep me updated on your quest to understanding the inner workings of Eridan’s mind though; I love a good mystery.”

You’re not sure what it is about her easy acceptance, her lack of questioning about whatever the fuck is going on with Bro, but you suddenly don’t feel quite like you’re standing to face whatever is to come alone. 

Work calls Jane away not much later, and you can’t help but feel the call lifted a weight of your heart.

You are off in dreamland moments after your head sinks into the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is, obviously, a direct quote from '2001: A Space Odyssey', because nothing says Science Fiction like random quotes from past-era popular media taken entirely out of context and because I hold an unironic love for that stupid movie, hallucinogenic drug trip AND terrifying space-baby Dave included.
> 
> Planet **Ancha** is named after one of the stars in the Aquarius constellation (officially designated 'θ Aquarii'), the name of which translates to 'the haunch'. In Chinese, this star, together with 'ρ Aquarii' are called 泣 (Qì), which apparently means weeping, and 'θ Aquarii' itself is called 'The Second Star of Weeping'. I have taken this to mean that 'θ Aquarii' is actually half a weeping buttstar, and I could honestly not think of a better stellar body to name the Ampora family's home base planet after.
> 
> The **Lusca** are named after, well, the lusca, a sea monster from the Caribbean generally described as a giant octopus. Bigger than any other octopus ever reported, pretty much all sightings of it have been proven bogus and, well, it probably doesn't exist. In-verse the name is actually derived from a translation error caused by an Alternian in-joke centered around the Lusca people's naturally lusus-white skin and convenient seadweller purple colour scheme, which then morphed into a species designation in several languages over time.
> 
>  And the promised image of what Lusca!Eridan's face looks like;


	2. A Puzzle Wrapped Inside an Enigma Housed Inside a Cranium

It isn’t until almost a week into your fancy new job that you actually get to accompany Eridan anywhere more memorable than a stroll around the premises to learn how incredibly well-secured the Ampora threshold is and how much your living on the house grounds is actually not needed at all.

Because Eridan turns out to be somewhat of a house mouse, preferring to stick around the estate while his uncle and brother are somewhere out in space -because of reasons at least half of which you are not legally obliged to know about until you’ve signed a definite contract- you’ve had plenty of time to familiarise yourself with the villa and the gardens while sits locked away in his study like a grouch and pretends you don’t exist.

But whatever passive-aggressive, semi-peaceful routine Eridan had decided to settle with initially would never have lasted forever in the face of the fact that he does, apparently, actually have stuff to do. So you’re going to a party.

Or rather, Eridan is going to a party, and you are going to go to work (which happens to be at a party) with explicit orders not to have any fun, because having fun would distract from making sure Eridan isn’t getting lynched by rabid mutated testing monkeys who want the Ampora family to own up to the gruesome things that were done to them in Ampora owned facilities. Or, whatever it is you are meant to protect him from, which is probably not half as exciting as that.

Not unexpectedly, Eridan continues his bizarre penchant for ignoring you entirely during the hoover ride there, leaving you mostly unsure what to expect from all of this other than that there will be a lot of rich people you are probably going to hate on sight.

You are not let down in the slightest. 

The party takes place at a swanky casino, because apparently anything even remotely fancy on Ancha either takes place on a private, high-end venue or in a casino. Because the locals apparently love celebrating special occasions by going bankrupt. Maybe it’s a special type of schadenfreude; observe your peers waste their fortune on cards and dice at the risk of being the big loser of the night. Sort of the opposite of free entertainment without counting as regular paid entertainment.

You learn, from listening to the chatter around you as you shadow Eridan through his greeting rituals, that the occasion of the day is a merger between two very influential companies the names of which you think you’ve seen stamped on delivery forms a few times over the years. From the pleased, excessively happy expressions both leading parties in the merger have plastered on their faces when they receive Eridan, you can only assume that Ampora senior probably unapologetically has his fist shoved into this particular pie.

Despite not being the host or even one of the attendees actually involved in the ordeal, Eridan has a significant washlist of people who apparently really need to be greeted, all of whose names, family names, companies and ranks Eridan somehow knows from the top of his head, and you have to actively work to keep your mind on your job and look out for threats instead of losing too much focus on trying to understand and remember the sights and sounds around you.

There is something to be said for multiculturality, you think as you look around. Ancha’s population is a mishmash of peoples from all over the galaxy, and a significant number of the attendees are species you can’t even begin to guess the origins or names of. 

Apparently done with bowed greetings and short, practiced suck-up quotes, Eridan finally sticks to a table and is immediately approached by a short, translucent bipedal creature you peg as female by being a dick human and categorising on human behaviours. You could be wrong, of course; you don’t even know if she’s from a bigendered species like you and Eridan are, but for the moment, while you are not expected to involve yourself in the social happenings where you can muck up and call anyone anything offensive, you’ll stick to human norms for recognition’s sake.

She is followed by a taller, more androgynous alien who is covered in an oddly mossy green fur that could actually just be moss, who seems to consist of at least 90% leg. If you ever heard their names then you’ve already forgotten, so you nickname the pair Jelly and Bean. 

You’re not sure why, but you’d been expecting Eridan to keep up his charade of mild-mannered congratulations and rehearsed general statements for the duration of the main party at least, so it comes as kind of a shock to you when he falls back on his profanity-riddled prose-vomiting the moment they draw him into a conversation. Apparently, you think, these two aren’t important enough for his best behaviour.

They are undeterred, however, and the translucent girl is doing an interesting thing with her oddly long middle finger (does it count as a middle finger if she has only four?) that you instinctively place as flirtatious. You can’t see this ending well.

Whether he is simply not interested in girls whose organs are visible through their skin or hasn’t realised her intentions you can’t really say, but he answers her pleasantries with flat, uninterested monosyllables, seeming more interested in conversing with Bean.

You let your attention wander around the room while Bean and Eridan begin an animated conversation about clothes, because Bean’s outfit consists of nothing but a loosely draped forest green sash decorated with some kind of beading, and trying to figure out how Eridan can discern a designer’s name from just a draped piece of cloth makes your head hurt.

There are, as far as you can tell, no other humans in the room. The majority of the species in attendance walk on two legs and are in possession of a mouth, something nose like and at least one eye, but that’s where the general similarities end; there is no cohesive shape or limb ratio implying relation between the mishmash of aliens. 

Out of all of them, you consider with some intrigue, Eridan and Jelly’s species are most like yours. Eridan is taller and more sinewy than the human average and he’s got his white skin and purple fins thing going on, but for all that his nose is much flatter than a human’s most of his facial features are in the same place as yours. Jelly looks somewhat squished in comparison, and the fact that you can see her brain though her clear skin and strangely sheer, milky bones makes you kind of uncomfortable, but she too seems to follow mostly human proportions.

In stark contrast, Bean looks more like a giraffe meets centaur gone horribly wrong, a mesh of limbs that consists of four long legs and one pair of what is best described as t-rex arms, to go with an oddly thin face posessing three eyes and a mouth that looks like it’s been put on sideways. You’ve stopped trying to figure out the evolutionary advantages of specific species of aliens years ago for this exact reason.

Eridan makes a monotone comment and your attention is drawn back to the conversation at the table, where Jelly seems to finally have gotten fed up with Eridan’s attitude and Bean seems somewhat conflicted about which side to pick.

Luckily for whatever degree of friendship they may or may not have going on, shitlord drama queen Eridan apparently decides he is done with the two of them and walks off with a haughty note to his stride. You decide that you don’t want to know and trail behind him quietly, resisting the temptation to look over your shoulder to watch the fallout.

You follow him into a smaller, quieter side-room where the murmur of conversation fades to background noise, and almost run into him when he suddenly turns around with a spectacular twirl and focuses his undivided attention on you.

“Dave. There is a fashion designer named Maryam currently on Ancha. I want you to contact her and set up an appointment.”

“Yessir,” you say dryly, filing the request into your to-do list. You’re not exactly his secretary and you’re sure as hell not gonna keep his agenda for him, but in this case you’ll have to run a background check and pick a suitable venue anyways, so you’ll tolerate his attitude to a point. 

Apparently Eridan finds this funny, because he gives you an eerie grin that makes you think that luscan faces are probably not naturally inclined to do that; the odd dark seam running vertically over his mouth stretches with the motion, looking more intimidating that jovial. “Well if I knew you were going to comply that easily I would have asked you to fetch me a drink earlier.” 

You roll your eyes, glad to have your shades to hide behind. It’s perhaps the greatest perk of this job; your dress code asks for neutral semiformal gear and sunglasses, all supplied by your work and very well made. You’ve never felt more comfortable. “I’ll check out this Maryam’s files and figure a good place to meet that won’t kill you or otherwise make my job harder, and once I am absolutely sure you don’t risk death by sewing supplies or other, equally fashionable weapons of choice I’ll leave the rest up to floaty mcpancakeface, your virtual assistant.”

You pause and lower your head enough that you can give him a pointed look over the edge of your shades. “Any requests I am not contractually obliged to fulfil, I’m afraid you’ll have to manage yourself, sir.” 

He looks kind of put out, and the smile drops like a band-aid ripped off too fast, but the explosion you keep expecting remains absent. You know he’s planning something, still trying to get rid of you with his mopey silences and snippy remarks, but the promised nuclear warfare that traumatised your predecessors has yet to make an appearance, and it is putting you on edge. 

Of course, there are three weeks left until the end of your trial period. You guess you’ve got time.

\---

The evening progresses surprisingly quietly, all things considered. Eridan leaves a few more people scattered throughout the party company in various states of annoyance while dealing with some others who are apparently more important in the greater scale of things with exactly the kind of poise you’d expect from a little lordling. He never does approach the gambling tables though, seemingly more than content to just stick to the social side of things.

If nothing else, you muse as you shift your weight to your other leg, you’ve learned a thing or two about being a bodyguard. And also about what passes for Eridan’s social skills, though you think those might be more aptly described as a unique species of metaphorical algae: useful on the whole and required to maintain the ecosystem, but not something you’d stick your hands into if given the choice. 

It’s gonna take some time to get used to spending your time at parties making sure Eridan doesn’t slip away and ditch you, which he has tried sort of halfheartedly several times, and generally playing at being invisible. You’ve always been more of a center of attention kind of guy, not quite the life of the party but not the loner in the corner either.

It’s… well, it’s honestly kind of boring. Even for your first day, it’s just standing around making sure Eridan doesn’t get killed and/or finds a way to accidentally murder himself, and, first impressions notwithstanding, he is actually better at that than you would have assumed. He is rude, elitist and brash, but at least he’s not starting wars.

And of course not three seconds after you finish considering just that the conversation turns sour.

“-are not going to reconsider endin’ the trade negotiations,” Eridan snidely informs the angry, towering dignitary he was having a mostly pleasant-looking conversation with up until a few seconds ago. “One evenin’ of playin’ nice isn’t gonna cut it this time. Look, I don’t care that you ‘didn’t know’ or which assistant went behind your back to cut costs in the factory; your goods don’t measure up to the standards outlined in the contract. If you want to resume our trade relationship, maybe you should consider workin’ on that crud reputation of yours some more.” 

You missed the first part of the conversation, but the trader is clearly not happy about the answer he’s gotten and, if the way the muscles shifting under his thin, tight-spanned skin are any indication, this can only get worse.

“Now listen here you little snot, just because you’re here on Lord Ampora’s behalf doesn’t mean you get to-” is as far as the trader gets before you step in front of your employer, hand resting on the hilt of your sword. He is taller than you and evidently build for strength, but you have years of martial arts training from all corners of at least your birth galaxy under your belt and you’re not especially scared of corrupt alien merchants.

“Sir,” you tell him tersely, “please reconsider turning this conversation in an uncivil direction or I’m afraid I am obligated to slice you up like an onion. I won’t even cry doing it.” You’re fairly certain the man won’t know what an onion is or why it is related to tears, but his somewhat shrek-like form leaves you unable to resist dropping the reference.

An angry hissing noise escapes the man’s pointed nose and he looks like he is physically straining against the temptation to try and bash your face in, but after a tense silence during which all eyes in the surrounding area are on the scene you’re making he turns and walks away, an almost visible cloud of fury trailing behind him.

Eridan looks unnecessarily smug and you really wish criticising your charge in public wasn’t bad form, because you’d really rather he not get it into his head that it’s somehow a _good_ idea to provoke people into wanting to smash their fist through his skull just so you’ll step in and assert his authority for him.

Instead you glide back into the crowd and observe as the onlookers slowly return to their own business once they realise there is nothing to gawk at anymore.

It’s not even half a minute before Eridan is approached again, because apparently talking to the Ampora heir is more important than worrying about getting on the bad side of his attitude problems. This time it’s by a very tall lady who is visibly older than both of you, whose knees are backwards and whose eyes are hidden by her violently curling, off-white mane, which is trimmed in the back but not at the sides.

In the deceptively dark shadows cast by her thick white bangs you see the oddly iridescent glitter of what seems to at least be only one pair of eyes and there are no extra limbs or especially threatening growths on her person, nor does she seem to be carrying a weapon of any kind under her black and green dress, but there is something about her that raises the hair on the back of your neck.

Your brain scrambles to find an excuse to pull Eridan aside and request that he please, please not anger the lady in green, but while you are struggling to think of something that wouldn’t violate too many terms of your contract, Eridan has already started up a conversation.

Against all your expectations, (most of which involve him making an ass of himself by pointing out that her mane is tangled and that, compared to most other people in the room she looks neither especially glamorous or especially well-groomed) Eridan seems floored with awe more than anything, and accepts her greetings with more poise than you’ve seen of him all evening.

She courtesies, a strange motion that involves sinking through her knees and rising back up in an interesting but not especially graceful fashion, and then turns to you.

“You carry yourself well, warrior of earth,” she addresses you with a deep, gravelly voice that you wouldn’t directly have associated with a woman but that seems to fit her on a fundamental level that you are jealous of in ways you don’t quite understand. You nod your head in thanks, both because you’re not quite sure what to say to that and because you are supposed to be staying out of the spotlight during work hours, but she does not turn back to Eridan just yet.

Instead, Eridan steps up beside her as if he were the one joining the conversation without even complaining, and you are suddenly very certain you are supposed to know who this woman is. 

“I didn’t know there would be anyone from the cherubim guard here tonight,” Eridan says with a reverent undertone in his voice that seems both out of place and incredibly fitting, because of course someone like him would have the equivalent of a teenage girlcrush on one of the most ancient, merciless warrior orders in the known galaxy.

The lady gives him a brittle smile that looks infinitely less brittle now that you know she is a warmaiden representing the cherubs, because if even a smidgeon of the rumors you’ve heard on her order are true then she could probably remove your neck from between your head and shoulders without you even noticing you are dead.

“I am here for Kahyi festivities,” she says darkly, though you’re starting to think that the dark undertone is probably a natural inflection in her voice rather than something betraying intent. 

Eridan nods sagely, clearly knowing what she is referring to, and you shift awkwardly. Whatever Kahyi festivities entail, they are clearly widespread enough that Eridan knows exactly what she is talking about, but you don’t think you’ve ever even heard the term.

“Do you have plans for Kahyi, warrior of earth?” she asks you, prompting some awkward flashbacks to middle school and being called to the front of the class on a topic you haven’t studied for. You shift around some more and try to bite through the uncomfortable white noise spiking in your headspace as you feel put on the spot.

“Sorry to say it, ma’am,” you reply, trying to keep yourself from mumbling and coming over as less professional than you’re already being just by letting yourself be drawn into the conversation. “-but I’m not really from around here so I’m not quite sure what you’re even talking about.” 

Her expression doesn’t change, but you can feel her disappointment with your answer resonate through the air in some kind of alien static that you are at least ninety-nine percent certain only exists in your head. 

“Kahyi,” she starts, “is an ancient warrior’s tradition practiced by those who have forsworn their lives in the name of another. Every year we devote a day to ensuring our loved ones know we remember them even as we must prioritise duty, and that we understand the burden we put on them by leaving them to await a day on which they might hear of our deaths come too early.”

Well that sounds incredibly morbid, is what you want to say. 

“So you’re here to spend time with your family? At this party?” is what comes out of your mouth instead, and you may possibly want to slap yourself a little because you sound like a douche.

She smiles slightly and tilts her head backwards to look at you from under her messy headful of hair. Her eyes are dark and oily, a rainbow of colours playing over the surface and obscuring whatever pupils or irises hide below. “I am here because it was convenient. I can represent my lord so that his name does not go entirely forgotten, and I can spend Kahyi with my daughters.” 

The conversation dwindles after that, with Eridan taking over to ask her about her daughters and her position and mercifully giving you the opportunity to step back into the background noise and resume doing your job. Not that you think Eridan is in much danger while he is chatting up what more or less constitutes a legendary space-paladin, but you’d much rather step away from the conversation where you don’t have to listen to her haunting voice accusing you of not doing your homework.

You try to distract yourself by observing Eridan as he fires off question after question and wonder whether this is the unicorn Jane spoke of, a glimpse of something magically less than terrible under a majestic little shitprince exterior. 

The warmaiden’s words whisper through your head for the rest of the night, not quite heavy or light or even tangible at all and only there when you try to swallow the lump in your throat down or seek to wash away the bitter taste of ash on your tongue. 

Death is not a subject you consider easily. 

You do not sleep well that night.

\---

The gloomy fog in your head lifts well before morning, and by the time you get out of bed and finish up your morning routine you feel pretty damn ok again, lack of sleep notwithstanding. You’ve managed to make it through your first day of actually working without Eridan giving you too much shit or even launching the bullying attempts you keep expecting, and it’s only saddled you with one existential crisis as opposed to the expected, significantly larger amount.

Your muscles burn more than you’d like, a combination of your time spent standing up the evening before and the training schedule you’ve committed yourself to. While you’ve never dropped your martial arts training entirely, picking up new tricks from everywhere under not only Sol but a handful of other suns as well, being a bodyguard makes your physical sharpness a little more important than it was as a dockworker.

Plus, you’d really rather not lose the guns you got from lifting lots of heavy things, despite the shift in training priorities. You are only a little embarrassed at yourself when you pose in front of the mirror to watch the muscles shift below the skin. 

Ha, take that PE teacher in junior year who told you you’d never exceed noodle status.

You spend another ten minutes fussing over your hair, because you can and because your job contract actually requires a certain degree of physical grooming. Apparently unkempt bodyguards are a huge social faux-pas in high society. Who knew?

Deeming yourself properly groomed and sticking on your new favourite suit (one out of five identical copies, all equally comfortable and well-made and basically the best guideline-restricted uniform you’ve ever heard of) you head out to the kitchen, a slight spring in your step as you anticipate breakfast. Food tastes ten times better after a good workout, and fancy, good food tastes even better and, okay, you’re really just a morning person, but only when the mood strikes you.

Normally the kitchen is empty by the time you get there. Your morning outline ends later than Maeichi’s, when she is home at all, and Eridan gets up at ass early in the morning because he’s apparently incredibly anal about that kind of thing, whereas the bossman gets his food delivered to his room in the very, very rare occasion he isn’t somewhere in a galaxy far, far away talking the money out of some poor fuck’s pockets.

Today, however, you find Eridan slumped over the kitchen table looking, for the lack of a better word, droopy.

He turns to you slowly and gives a noncommittal grunt and something that passes for a little wave the same way kicking a beehive passes for playing soccer. You’re not sure you want to know.

“Good morning, sir,” you greet him with unnecessary chipperness because apparently you share at least some of Bro’s sadistic streak, and because you just remembered you hold a deep-rooted hatred for morning people on bad days. The flat look you get in response brightens your morning, and you file it away as payback for his snotty attitude the day before. 

Honestly, you’re starting to wonder how this kid chased off all his previous handlers.

There is no verbal repercussion though, so you move on to gather your food in an odd, not-quite companionable silence during which you contemplate how strange it is to see Eridan outside his workroom, where most of your encounters so far have taken place.

It shouldn’t be weird because the guy lives here and you’re more or less a visitor while you’re still on your trial period, but there is a part of your brain that has a very hard time thinking of the villa as a house people live in the same way they do in apartments; everything looks too expensive to touch, sit on or even look at for too long, and there is something about the overall design, neatness and lack of out-of-place knickknacks and stupid memorabilia that just makes you think ‘museum’.

It had been somewhat surprising to learn that the Amporas didn’t really do servants in the classic sense of the word. There is a small cleaning troupe that comes over and kept the common areas presentable every four days, and there are the delivery folks who come in the early hours of the morning and leave whatever stuff they bring in the kitchen, but everyone cooks their own food, and bedrooms and other private rooms are your own business.

Which is relieving in a way, because you’re honestly not that fond of people cleaning through and around your stuff.

By the time you’ve squirreled together some toast, a glass of something that is probably not actually milk but looks and tastes enough like it that you’ll take it over any other alternative (it _is_ advertised as being actual milk, but you are more lightyears removed from any real living cows than you want to think about, so you’re assuming it’s probably a very well-made substitute) and an interesting collection of toast-toppings (some kind of human-friendly meat, and paste made from a type of bean that is apparently very good for your digestive system, which actually sounds kind of ominous) Eridan actually looks slightly more miserable than he did when you walked in.

You put your food on the table across him and spread some not-quite-butter (hard to believe, right?) on your toast before you turn your full attention back to your boss. “You okay there man, sir?”

You’re about ninety percent sure ‘man, sir’ isn’t any appropriate way to address anyone, but for some reason Eridan never takes offense to any of your less formal overtures. You’re keeping the ‘sir’, though, because you’d really rather not get out of the habit and forget while you’re in public. Your salary would not thank you.

Eridan sops his spoon through his breakfast listlessly and makes some kind of sombre affirmative noise. You can’t blame him for not wanting to eat it; he’s having some slurry-like green mess that looks like what you’d get if you took dirty pond-water and made pudding with it. Your own appetite wanes a little. 

“Not hungry? Sir?” He grunts again, and, really, it’s kind of like you’re talking to yourself this way. You wonder if you caught him in a bad mood or if you’ve just ran into the reason why he gets up so stupidly early every day; deeply ingrained, time of the day related inability to formulate anything beyond moderate caveman etiquette. 

Eridan sighs and runs his fingers through his hair, which is sticking in every direction, before he opens his mouth to mumble something unintelligible. You take a bite out of your mystery meat sandwich as you lean forward over the table. It is delicious.

After you swallow down whatever kind of beast you just put in your mouth (spacefare has taught you not to ask too many questions where food is concerned) you turn back to Eridan and his mid-morning crisis. “I’m sorry sir, I didn’t quite get that.”

“I’m hungover you ingrate,” Eridan sneers at you, dumping his spoon-like eating utensil into his bowl of goop. 

You take another bite of your own breakfast and try to recall if you’d seen him drink at all at the party. Other than the glass of something sparkly and blue handed to him near the beginning, you’re drawing a total blank. “Huh, I didn’t realise you drank that much. Something I need to keep an eye out for in the future, sir? You know, to keep you from sticking your opinions where they probably shouldn’t go?”

Eridan’s face remains mostly blank, his fins a droopy dark purple that makes him look even paler than usual, and he shovels a spoonfork full of goop into his mouth while mumbling something about ‘fuckin’ full land-mammal species and their ability to guzzle bullshit poisons down their throats for fun’, and you can’t help but snicker at his apparent misery.

He glares at you, but the mood in the room lightens almost tangibly and somehow the rest of the morning passes in a haze of almost friendly pseudo-conversation, most of which comes from you and is met with half-hearted barbs or disinterested grunting noises. 

You think you’ve gotten your first true look at the unicorn hiding beneath.

\---

Two days later the cheery little personal assistant embedded into your sunglasses informs you that it is Kahyi, and you find an incredibly tacky christmas card among the deliveries meant for you, signed with Bro’s name.

You stare at it, the oddest mixture of relief and betrayal battling it out somewhere around your digestive tract.

And here you always thought he just forgot the earth date christmas was celebrated on.

(But really, why couldn’t he ever just _explain_ these kinds of things?)

\---

It’s about two weeks and just as many uninteresting parties later when something breaks up the monotony again, late in the evening while you are getting ready to sleep.

You’re in the middle of getting undressed, having just finished your evening workout, when you hear a muffled thump coming from the living room.

It doesn’t sound like anyone is dying, but you’re supposed to be a bodyguard so you thank your lucky stars that you are at least wearing your training pants still and make your way over to the living room.

Once there you squint around in the dark trying to detect any sign of activity, but the room seems silent and deserted. Taking this, combined with the continued silence from the alarms, as a sign that it is at least mostly safe, you flick on the lights.

The first thing you notice is that the coffee table has been knocked over, with a pair of legs clad in familiar purple pinstripes still hooked over the edge, drooping sadly at their tragic defeat by the hands of the elegantly carved piece of wooden furniture. 

You walk around the table to find Eridan splayed on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling with the most sour expression you’ve ever had the honour of observing. There is no blood, he doesn’t seem outwardly hurt, and his expression isn’t as uncomfortable as you imagine it would be if he twisted an ankle or something else that would actively prevent him from getting up, so you can only assume that this is some kind of Eridan thing.

“Do I wanna know why you’re laying on the floor like a limp noodle at triple-ass ‘o'clock in the morning, sir? With the lights off?”

He glares at you and folds his arms over his chest petulantly, huffing like it’ll make him seem more threatening somehow. The fact that he is still laying on the floor does kind of take away from the effect, but you decide it’s not quite unicorn enough to detract from the prince points he’s been racking up by being rude at social gatherings.

“Obviously,” he drawls, “I’m pulling a pondsquatting assprune sage on the mountaintop and meditating. What does it _look_ like I’m doing you fucking plebeian piece of trash?”

Unicorns are supposed to be virtuous and pure, and you’re really starting to wonder why you and Jane picked one of those for your little prince or unicorn game (it even has a point system now!) at all. 

“You know, I’m actually not sure. It _looks_ ,” you try to mimic his offended voice to the best of your ability, “like you are lying on the floor. And half of the table. Which seems a little too expensive to be lying around on it’s side like this, by the way, and I feel like I should probably offer my services to find you something more replaceable if you want to toss around furniture at odd hours of the night, sir.”

The response comes in the form of a glare, accompanied by the kind of deliberate silence you don’t think you’ve seen pulled off this well since the last time you got into an argument with a toddler.

“Just so we’re on the same page, you don’t actually need bodyguarding back to your room, right? Or do you need me to read you a bedtime story to ease whatever grand trauma the floor has no doubt inflicted on you? Or are we good here and can i go back to getting ready for bed?”

“Oh go suck on a fucking cactus.”

“I’d really rather not, but thank you for the offer. If that will be all, sir?”

“Just fucking piss off and let me be a piece of fuckin’ trash on my lonesome you insufferable cobblewank.”

You tap your heels mockingly and, after firmly deciding you’re better off not trying to understand what is happening, turn back to your bedroom and go back to sleep.

When you walk back into the living room the next morning Eridan is thankfully no longer lying on the floor. The poor coffee table is still on it’s side though.

With a sigh you flip the table back onto it’s overly ornate, expensive legs and shove it back into the general vicinity of where you think it’s meant to go and mentally strike a few more stripes on the prince tally. It’s a shame, you think, that the unicorn tally is starting to fall behind. 

\---

Despite your initial wariness of them you, have come to learn that the living room chairs are, in fact, incredibly comfortable and that nobody will chastise you for planting your ass on any of them for any duration of time no matter how museum-worthy they look.

You are sitting next to the window in the warmth of the first sunny day Ancha’s violet provinces have seen all week, reading through an unnecessarily garish tourism page on the area and generally trying not to think too hard on the knowledge that your trial period is nearing it’s final days when Eridan storms into the living room looking frazzled and slightly deranged.

He stops just beyond the doorway and looks around until he catches sight of you, and there’s a few seconds where you wonder if you’ve maybe done something terribly wrong as he stalks towards you angrily.

“Dave,” he starts, the usually breathy inflections of his tone going as crazy as his hair, which looks like he’s been walking through a storm. A quick look outside reveals that the weather is perfectly calm. “Come with me. We’re going out.”

You know Eridan’s schedule because that’s your job so you know he doesn’t actually have anything but paperwork scheduled for the afternoon. Which, you suppose, doesn’t mean he _has_ to stick around the house, but since he’s never shown much interest in going anywhere else you are slightly suspicious.

If the reason he never kept a bodyguard around for long was because he blindsided them in a sudden crazy mood and threw them off of a long flight of stairs you really would have appreciated hearing about that _before_ the date of your own unfortunate demise. 

You momentarily consider whether or not this is better or worse than him sneaking out and ditching you to go get himself killed, which would probably end in your unfortunate demise at his unclefather’s hands, but you decide to cut that trail of thought short because dead Daves happen to not be one of your favourite topics of consideration.

So you put your pcd down on the table and get up. “Going anywhere specific, sir?”

Because you are kind of supposed to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere he will be mauled by dogs and haters. Though on the plus side, at least without prior planning there won’t be any conspirators predicting you’re going wherever it is you’re going.

Under one month into being a bodyguard and you’re already getting paranoid about snipers in the ceiling. Wonderful.

Eridan makes an exaggerated hissing noise that you think is meant to imitate an ‘ugh’ sound but doesn’t quite manage, and makes an impatient gesture. “ _Obviously_ we’re going to take the old man’s most expensive hoover and go joyriding with the explicit goal of crashin’ it into a lake. No, for fuck’s sake, I just want to go get some fresh air, don’t be such a nag!”

You lift one eyebrow because you’re pretty sure asking one question doesn’t usually constitute as nagging, but he looks just hassled enough that you have the sense to not push the issue. 

When he realises that you’re ready to go he runs his hands through his hair once, which you think may be an attempt to fix the mess but which really only makes it worse, and turns on his heels with his usual dramatic flair, tails of his coat flapping behind him majestically. You don’t have the heart to tell him he kind of looks like a tool. Just a little. 

You trail behind him and realise how glad you are for the dress-guidelines your job provides because it’s given you the routine you need to always have your sword handy instead of leaving you to scramble after your shit last minute. You’re pretty sure Eridan wouldn’t take well to it if you needed him to wait up for you while you went to fetch your equipment. Patience doesn’t really seem his strong suit.

As it turns out he wasn’t lying entirely when he mentioned stealing a hoover, because you follow him into the parking space (which always looks kind of magical during daylight hours, because most native plants have thin, silky leaves that don’t have the consistency to block out the sun, casting the area in an eerie, surreal green glow) and he climbs into the passenger seat of one of the more colourful, sleek purple hoovers.

You get into the drivers’ seat because you are technically also his personal driver. This is a good thing, because you are a little kid on the inside and because you like shiny things. “Just so we’re clear, this one isn’t actually one of the boss’, right? Because if you’re planning on telling me to run it into a wall I’m gonna have to disappoint you, sir.”

He glares at you and readjusts his glasses, looking only a margin less insane than he did when he was indoors and on edge. “It was a _joke_ , goddesses stop takin’ everythin’ so damn seriously. Aren’t you the fuckin’ overlord of stupid BS wordplay not meanin’ crap in real sense?”

“Metaphor,” you correct automatically. “The word you’re looking for is metaphor, and hell yeah I’m the evil overlord of majestic wordplay, five times homerun while all of my poor, confused minions are still trying to bat the ball. It’s incredible, I know. But yeah so basically I’m also just fond enough of my head and any other limbs Bossman would probably screw off of my torso that I’m making sure I won’t be ordered to do anything too stupid.”

You consider your own words for a second. “That said, I am not necessarily opposed to doing anything stupid, provided it doesn’t kill either of us. Because you know, if you end up being killed it’s kind of my funeral. Which would be tragic because my will is currently this mostly automatically generated piece of trash that I would very much appreciate to get the chance to personalise. I’d much rather have my money be used to create a giant golden turd for Bro post-mortem than give him my music collection, you feel me sir?”

Somehow Eridan manages to find it in himself not to give you one of his judgemental stares, and moves to open the roof of the hoover instead. You’re almost off of Ampora-owned land so you slow and wait for him to tell you where to go.

“Sennesidh park,” he tells the navigation, using a strangely sharp hissing s noise that you couldn’t reproduce if you tried, though you’ve found that the locally used translation software is better than most and would probably automatically correct you if you just sort of garbled something that sounds like it. (Though, interestingly enough, it never corrects either Eridan or the boss’ odd little accents. You’re starting to think that that’s a personalised thing.) 

Coincidentally, since there are only two people on Ancha who speak english Bro is probably the only one who could catch you fumbling your words. And you stopped caring about him seeing you as anything less than cool years ago, when you realised he has the mental capacity of a ten-years-old schoolboy.

Keysmashname park turns out to be pretty close, within what you would have considered walking distance. It takes a grand total of three minutes to get there, without even needing to speed. You will never understand Eridan. 

It’s interesting to see more of the planet though; you’ve seen several party venues, but you haven’t been outside of the commercial bubbles much aside from wandering through the lush waterscaping of the villa garden; you don’t think you’ve seen any flowers before now.

Eridan gets out of the hoover in a rush and walks into the park with the kind of brisk pace only someone who knows where they are going would use, and you revisit your earlier worries where your final destination is a quiet place to murder you inconspicuously. Maybe he hides the body. Maybe he has a way to get away with it.

This is incredibly stupid. 

You follow after him with some effort. Eridan’s legs are longer than yours, and he is striding with a determination that you very nearly need to run to keep up with. (You don’t, because you’d look ridiculous, but you’re tempted.)

One thing you’ve always considered the norm for parks is that they are centered around a lake or a large field, but apparently the Anchan landscapers disagree, because Eridan leads you through a labyrinth of thin, winding pathways framed by towering, flowering plantlife of all colours of the rainbow and over artfully etched stone arching bridges.

After passing over the third cheerfully burbling stream, you give up trying to make sense of the layout and just quietly follow after Eridan, who either knows where he is going or very purposely carries on being lost, because his pace never slows.

Much like the plants covering the garage the flowers and bushes on either side of the path are translucent and frail, looking like they’d fall apart if you reached out and touched them, though when you accidentally brush by a low overhanging vine it only shivers and shrivels upwards. When you look over your shoulder before rounding the corner you catch it slowly unfolding itself downwards. 

The whole area is awash in light, scattered into all the colours of the rainbow through the numerous flowers, creating an atmosphere not unlike the glass-in-lead windows of old earthbound churches, though without the towering walls. You’re starting to wonder whether you are having some kind of pollen-induced psychedelic trip. 

Then Eridan slips off the premade paths, past the long, royal blue vines spanning overhead. The plants shrink away from his touch and reveal an unkempt animal trail that you would have completely missed on your own. Though, of course, you are still a little too busy being dazzled by the colours to pay much attention to that kind of stuff. You wonder if it looks any different to him, if his alien eyes see the same thing you do.

You duck in after him, foliage slinking away all around you. It’s very tempting to ask Eridan exactly _why_ you are getting off the manmade paths because you’re fairly certain that, with how frail the local flora looks, you’re not actually supposed to; but you did say you’d be open to doing something stupid as long as it wouldn’t get you killed, so you keep your mouth shut.

The trail is unkempt and doesn’t look like it was intended to be there at all, but Eridan marches through without hesitation. You can’t help but wonder if the plants jumping out of his way are feeding into whatever dramatic superiority complex he has, but before you can really consider what kind of psychological meanings Rose would attach to the whole thing you end up walking into the clearing that is, apparently, your destination.

An incredibly tall, willow-like tree towers over everything in the area, it’s autumn red leaves casting things in a warm glow. The tree’s vines hang from it’s branches in a dome-shaped overcast, the ground beneath which is entirely free from flowers and bushes, only covered in soft-looking lavender coloured moss.

Eridan wrestles out of his jacket and lets himself flop over onto the ground with a dry thump that definitely doesn’t sound as soft as the bed of moss makes it look, but it doesn’t seem to bother him as he lies down on his back and closes his eyes.

Not sure what you’re supposed to be doing here, you sit down beside him. The ground is not especially comfortable and feels kind of uneven, but the moss it is covered in is velvety below your fingertips and definitely feels more like something you’d expected in fabric than in nature. You really hope you’re not allergic.

“I hate paperwork,” Eridan says out of the blue, and you’re not sure if he’s talking to you or just making a general statement. “I mean I know the old fart can’t keep up all of the work on his fuckin’ own, and that I’m his successor, but this shit isn’t even for learnin’ anymore or anythin’!”

You have no idea what he is talking about, so you nod dumbly. 

“It’s like, the only thin’ I’m doin’ these days is puttin’ fuckin’ signatures on things and makin’ some public appearances at borin’ places that ain’t that important anyways because he’s too busy bein’ off planet to do it himself!” Eridan rants angrily, making wide hand motions at the overhead canopy. “This is all shit he could get any high-rankin’ busybody to do, you know? I could be off-planet, negotiatin’ somethin’ actually useful, but instead he just keeps me here like I’m some kind of frail tadpole needin’ fulltime surveillance.”

You, the aforementioned fulltime surveillance, keep silent. You don’t think he’s looking for input. 

“He says it’s because I’m too impatient for negotiatin’ still-”, okay, you kind of agree with that sentiment, really, “-and that this is supposed to keep me from flyin’ off the handle, but goddesses I am so _fuckin’ TIRED_ of paperwork! It’s all already been ran through ten different kindsa offfices to check for holes in the wordin’ anyhow so all I gotta say is yes or no!” 

You were an auditory learner in school and you’ve never had very legible handwriting, so you kind of get that too. 

Eridan rolls over and props his head onto his hands, looking straight at you. Huh, seems like he was talking to you specifically after all. Okay then. 

“So the boss’ reasoning is that you need to learn to repress violent impulses, which you are supposed to do by tackling a paperpusher workload, which in turn gives you violent impulses. And because of that we’re sitting under a tree.” You’re not sure what it is he wants you to say to that, but he does seem to be expecting you to say something. “You tried asking him for different work, sir?”

Eridan gives you a put out look. “Of course I have! We have this fuckin’ conversation every time the guy comes home from his important-ass bullshit, but it’s always the same fuckin’ story. Blah blah, ‘you’re too irresponsible, kid’, ‘remember that one time you punched that diplomat’, -who was totally askin’ for it bee-tee-dubs,- ‘oooh, but what if somethin’ _important_ comes up back on Ancha, who should be takin’ care of that shit when you’re not there?’, which NEVER happens. EVER! I’m literally holdin’ the fort for what, the off chance that one of the troll empresses suddenly decides to take a vacation from eternal warfare?” 

Eridan’s tirade of fury is accompanied with a wide-eyed stare and lots of wide hand motions, and you can’t help but notice his fins are flushed a dark, velvety purple that is spreading off to blotches over his face, painting a strangely high-contrast pattern that you’ve never noticed before. You wonder what it means, exactly.

“What I’m sayin’ is that if he’s goin’ to make me take over the company can’t he at least show a _little_ faith in me? I’ve been doin’ well, like, there ain’t been any real incidents for like three years, why the fuck can’t he get over himself?” Apparently, you think, being rude to people at parties to the point where they hate his guts does not count as an incident then. 

“Well,” you start dryly, not sure how well playing the devil’s advocate is going to be received, “He’d probably be a lot more comfortable with letting you run around through the galaxy and have incredible space adventures of your own if you didn’t keep on chasing off your protection. Like, believe it or not but I think he might actually be worried about you sir, dude.”

Eridan glares at you. “I wouldn’t have such a problem with his constant fuckin’ insistence to have someone watch my ass all day every day if I got to at least go somewhere it was neccesary! What the brickshittin’ frogsquat are you goin’ to save me from, papercuts?”

“Only the especially deadly papercuts, the little ones are out of my jurisdiction” you reply smartly, sitting back and shifting your weight to your arms. “And also the angry partygoers you charm into wanting to break your face with your wits and sweet attitude. Buddy, seriously, you ever considered that the boss wants you to have a steady guardian _before_ he lets you out to terrorise the rest of the universe? Like, he lets your brother out doesn’t he? And that guy’s had Bro looking out for him for what, six years now?”

To your surprise Eridan actually looks thoughtful, like he’s never considered this perspective before. “You’re sayin’ the reason he’s keepin’ me at the villa is because I don’t agree with his bodyguard shebang?”

You shrug. “Hey man, I’m obviously just talking to secure my job position yeah? But considering you haven’t been trying too hard to stick a wedge into my career plans I’m just saying, consider it. Unless you’ve still got some kind of plan to terrorise me into fleeing, in which case I guess all I am asking for in life is some kind of prior warning. Like, if you really don’t want me here you can just say so and I’ll leave you to your next sitter, yeah?”

The dark purple spots on his face have faded from an angry dark orchid colour to a soft plum and he’s giving you a look you can’t quite place. “I’m not gonna tell you to leave,” he says, and a strange silence falls between the two of you. 

Then he starts talking about the historical significance of the park, that was apparently built on top of an ancient battleground to honour the fallen and takes the shape of the old Ancha language’s symbol for peace. As far as distractions go it’s an obvious one, and the unexplained tension in his shoulders doesn’t quite vanish until minutes later, but you don’t comment on the redirect. 

Something changed between the two of you, a silent mutual accord that lightens the atmosphere substantially, and you make up your mind to comm Jane later that evening, because you think you may have snared yourself a unicorn.

\---

You sign the dotted line under a year long service contract on a rainy day that is no more or less remarkable than any other before or after it, and it’s almost surreal how little it seems to affect. A new keycard and a promotion in the security network’s system to broaden your access, a little purple decal on the collar of your shirt and a brief summary of what businesses and enterprises the Ampora family runs later, and you don’t at all feel as much like a different man as you were expecting.

Even the reactions from your friends, who have been joking about your lack of ability to keep a steady job going for years, seems muted and dull. There are congratulations, some promises about drinks if you’re ever in the same neighbourhood of the universe, maybe some wisecracks about how it’s better late than never, but whatever explosive reaction you’d built up to in your head remains unseen and life goes on.

The olive branch extended under the tree of Ghin Ha, planted on the grave of the Anchan prince who apparently sacrificed himself in order to end the war that almost exterminated their entire species (before spacefaring races came, landed and brought disease to deliver the final blow, a part of the story rarely ever mentioned by anyone except for Eridan, who seems fascinated by the whole thing), has blossomed into a calm working relation. 

With startlingly little resistance the days start slipping away until it’s somehow time for Bro and his own Ampora to return home, which you only remember because the name Cronus begins popping up all over Eridan’s schedule. Eridan says they’re not that close, but apparently they meet at least twice a week when Cronus is on Ancha and you can’t help but wonder what that says about _your_ family. 

You spend a week fretting about it silently, and yet somehow you’re still not entirely prepared when you run into Bro on your way to the kitchen one morning. He seems likewise surprised, mumbles something about being better than he thought, not getting chased off by Eridan, and then flees because apparently duty calls.

So maybe you’re not the only one who isn’t too sure where things stand. 

Bro doesn’t appear to be openly avoiding you after that encounter, but you can’t help but notice that what coincidental meetings happen are over soon and always come with an excuse to leave as quickly as possible. And really, while Cronus might be a more outgoing type than Eridan (also, from what you’ve heard, less swamped in paperwork) and doesn’t spend as much time at home as you do, you’re still living in the same house. It’s a little annoying how convinced Bro seems to be that he can just brush you off forever.

Of course it doesn’t quite work out the way Bro is hoping it would, because how could it when both of your agendas very clearly note Cronus and Eridan’s little lunch date? 

They meet in an exclusive lunch cafeteria quite a ways into an expansive wildlife preservation area that can only be accessed through a tunnel, not allowing anyone directly into the park itself. Apparently, like most of the life on Ancha, the local animals are naturally fragile and need the extra protection, which also explains why you haven’t seen any wildlife in any of the parks or vast gardens whatsoever; they’re almost extinct. 

The cafeteria itself is surprising, considering most of the villas and casinos are made of a type of dark, deep red stone characterised by small but elegant gold-like patterns curling over and throughout the rock formations, paired with marble-like influences, heavy, dense rainforest-like hardwood and coloured glass. But the lunchroom is light, all pure white glass and ligh, sun-bleached wood looking out over a lush, untarnished landscape.

Ancha is beautiful in it’s controlled state, but there is something wild about the mesh of untamed rainbow glass flowers you see below that makes it unlike anything you’ve seen before. Cronus and Bro are already waiting at a table next to the large, bubble-like windows with a view over the area.

For all that you’ve seen him a few times in passing, you don’t know a lot about Cronus Ampora other than that he is older than Eridan, but not the successor of the company. Most everything else has been whispered behind closed doors, tidbits of exaggerated stories, most of which were not especially flattering. Flighty, unambitious and flimsy are just a few words you’ve heard thrown around. 

You’ve gotten the vague sense that he isn’t very well-liked.

Despite being well over a decade older than Eridan (whose actual age you have never actually managed to figure out, but who is apparently well beyond his teens if his workload is anything to go by, regardless of how he acts), Cronus looks almost eerily similar to his sibling. His hair is tamed a little more rigidly and doesn’t seem to have the neon purple streak running through, and his face is flecked with purple where Eridan’s is generally mostly white, but their faces are nigh identical and if you didn’t know better you would have assumed they were twins.

You’re in the middle of considering whether or not it is possible that luscan people fleck purple with age, trying to take into account that you’ve seen Eridan’s face turn zebra-flecked and the Boss has never been anything but stark-white in the face as far as you’ve seen, when Eridan’s face flushes a light lavender, but only on the forehead.

It’s strange and, now that you’re paying attention to it, kind of fascinating to see the slow change; the intricate but apparently randomly arranged patterns of their faces transitioning from an opalescent white to various shades of purple, sometimes shading different areas of the face as the two of them rapidly launch into their ritual greetings.

The thing about events like this is that you’re not really supposed to do much other than make sure Eridan isn’t choking on a fishbone and that there are no snipers in the ceiling (there are not, you’ve checked), leaving you with ample time to study the bizarre colour shift in Eridan’s face -which has been startlingly blank during the entire exchange- while you very deliberately do not look at Bro. 

Bro seems to have come to the same conclusion, sitting back and avoiding looking at anything in particular while Cronus attempts to smarmily make fun of the fact that Eridan hasn’t chased off his new handler yet and then-

“-Huh, so maybe it’s a Strider thing, ey? Just the way they’re go-” With lightning reflexes Bro’s hand shoots out and slaps over Cronus’ mouth, instantly making Cronus flush a neon purple, though his fins turn a droopy near-black seconds later as he looks over at Bro. Eridan snickers into his hand immaturely. 

“You don’t wanna finish that sentence,” Bro informs him flatly before pulling his hand away, ignoring Cronus’ put out half-glare entirely. “We’re just here for decoration boys, let’s not pull me and lil’ Davey over here into the conversation, yeah? No need to make our job harder. Why don’t you go bitch about company things instead?”

Almost like it was just another cogwheel routine interruption, the conversation resumes without a hitch. You squirm in your seat, feeling kind of like an intruder in some kind of private ritual.

(Did Eridan and Cronus do their little lunchdates even when Eridan was without protection of his own, you wonder. How often have they sat here, at this specific table, under Bro’s watchful eye, just the three of them?)

The waiter, a slim, six-armed figure too androgynous to tack a gender on, drops by to ask for your orders and Cronus has his request hijacked by Bro’s insistent reminder that he is supposed to be following his diet (which you are assuming is a health diet, because Cronus is more or less a magically animated stickfigure, only slightly broader than the thin and wiry Eridan) while Eridan happily orders exactly double the amount his brother is allowed to get.

You grin. They are totally siblings.

Bro and yourself don’t order anything because it would be inappropriate. Luckily for you, the stuff luscans stuff into their faceholes, while not toxic exactly, looks incredibly unpalatable to the human eye, so it’s not like you need to worry about jealousy. 

The conversation between Eridan and Cronus passes fluidly from one subject you don’t understand to another, with the occasional input from Bro whenever Cronus asks for it, and there is something coiling in your stomach that is not quite nausea at the food that is being eaten.

Cronus and your Bro are familiar with each other, playing into each other’s movements and expectations with the kind of precision that betrays years of acquaintance, if not friendship. Even Eridan carries an air of comfort and naturalness about him that you’ve never seen, and you don’t think you’ve had anything like it since you and your three best friends all moved to different ends of the galaxy. 

Loneliness in a crowd isn’t something you’re used to, but you think you may be starting to understand the phrase. 

The topic of conversation is some kind of local politician whose name you can’t put a face to, about a breach in local tradition that you have no idea about, and it is making you uncomfortable. Bro occasionally sends you meaningful looks now, at select points in the conversation where he seems to be expecting you to pipe up, but you are lost.

In a whirlwind of awkward, confused feelings and unwanted melancholy the afternoon passes until Bro pulls Cronus away from the table so they’ll get to Cronus’ doctor’s appointment for something or the other in time, and you quietly follow Eridan outside to your own hoover.

Eridan doesn’t share any of your sour mood, instead walking with a slight spring in his step. Apparently bitching hour with* brother Cronus (*or, if you’re more precise ‘at’, at least 70% at the time; Eridan is _very_ critical of his sibling) does wonders for his stress levels. He even opens the hoover’s rooftop after pointing you homewards, apparently no longer caring that his hair -and, by extention, yours, but hey, at least it’s not your own fault,- will get messed up.

Eventually you break the comfortable silence by asking the question that’s been weighing on your thoughts.

“So, are my Bro and yours, like…” You let your sentence trail off there, because there are things you’d really rather not think about but, beyond that, there are things you’d really rather left unspoken if at all possible, and this is one of them.

Eridan makes a twisted expression, apparently returning to human facial communication without his sibling there to interpret him, and flares his fins at you. “If you value your head, toes and genitals, please never ask me to seriously consider that question, because I don’t know for sure and I would really, really like to keep it that way.”

Because you know where he is coming from you nod and shut your mouth. 

The rest of the hoover trip is spent quietly enjoying the breeze.

\---

The quietest nights happen on Eridan’s days off, most of which he spends reading, floating in the pool and napping before turning in for the night. He says it’s an evolutionary thing required for survival on the luscan home planet when it still existed, which apparently had incredibly long days that required laying still in mud for hours on end, waiting for the hottest hours to pass.

Skipping these resting days, Eridan tells you with a slow, sleep-thick voice one morning, forces their bodies into survival mode until they find a body of mud to submerge themselves into, and the stress caused by the adrenaline boost coming with that could very well kill them even now, centuries after their planet ceased to be habitable.

It’s a little over two months into your job when Eridan begins leaving his rooms on days like these, almost three before he comes to tolerate your presence around him, and you wonder if it’s because he’s actually starting to trust you. You’re not sure why that thought creates an uncomfortable lump in your throat, and not honest enough with yourself to admit it gets under your skin. 

While the lull in activity apparently relaxes and invigorates Eridan enough to tackle his workload again the next day, it leaves you antsy for action; sitting still has never been your forte. You’ve taken to wasting your time bugging your friends with long, elaborate not-quite-truths about anything and everything, because you are not actually allowed to disclose any information about your job.

Rose, stationed at the Beforan/Alternian battle frontier that sees much less battle and much more long weeks of anticipation than the name implies, tends to humor you and write back similar observations of her own, but John and Jade rarely have the time to react to your endless tirades with more than a few paragraphs of their own and contact with Jane is restricted to calls while she is leafing through her paperwork, because apparently you make good background noise. 

Dirk rarely to never answers his own anything, preferring to leave AR active to take over any and all online social obligations. This is unfortunate for you, because despite your best intentions the sentient AI and you have never quite gotten along, which means your rambling greetings tend to be answered with whiplash-speed pseudo-insults. It’s almost funny really, considering how many times you’ve sat through Dirk lecturing Bro on never talking to either of you, because you’re pretty sure it’s been a good two months since you’ve properly gotten a hold of _him_ without robotsass interception. 

There is a knock on your door. It is one such quiet night of catting at AR to connect you to Dirk (“Dave. There are innumerable reasons why I cannot connect you to the D-meister at this point in time, only 12.552% of which is motivated by internalised malice,” more like you are going to kick his hardwire asscrack the moment he manages to attain three dimensions worth of existence) and you weren’t expecting any visitors after Eridan retreated to bed, so you are rumpled and unprofessional appearing.

You open the door half expecting something ridiculous, like Eridan in alien PJ’s and footie socks or something. Instead, to your great surprise, you are met with Bro and a bottle of very fine alcohol.

“Yo!” he greets, holding up the liquor. “Kids’ve both tucked in for the night, let’s hang.” 

Left speechless, you gape at him for a few seconds with what has to be a fairly dumb expression on your face. The literal moment he opens his mouth, most likely to comment on this, you hold up your hand and nod, not really trusting your voice. You have, admittedly, been working up to this moment a fair deal.

Bro shrugs with an unreadable something in his posture you try to put a name to without success and gestures for you to follow him. “Lady liz ain’t here because the old man’s out on business, and you could probably drop a bomb next to the mansion but on sleepy days the lil’ fishters won’t wake for anything, so we’re free to the living room provided we don’t make a mess.”

You’re not sure if Maeichi agreed to that particular nickname or if it’s just Bro being a douche, but you decide to not comment on it. No need to start policing anything without the party being discussed present.

You follow him into the living room and settle on the large, fluffy white couch that you think may be created from some kind of real animal fur. Whether that is a rich people thing or if the social stigma surrounding real fur just doesn’t extend to these parts of space, you do not know, but it is incredibly comfortable once you get over the initial shock of sinking into the fuzz so far it’s not entirely unreasonable to assume it might be planning to eat you, ass first.

Bro is uncharacteristically silent while he pours the both of you a glass, and then settles with a heavy thud and a groan. Maybe he’s been taking theatre lessons from Eridan, because as far as you are aware he did absolutely fuck-all over the duration of the day to have warranted this expression of supposed exhaustion.

“So,” he drawls with that stupid fake southern twang you _know_ he’s never genuinely had, “you and the baby fishman, huh?”

You swallow the first mouthful of liquor slowly, letting it burn it’s way down your throat warmly before you deign to respond to that. “That. Is not an appropriate way to frame that question. At all.”

Bro tosses back the contents of his glass like he doesn’t have work tomorrow and swallows it back without even _trying_ to appreciate the taste, which has to be sacrilege of some kind because it is lovely and also really expensive. There is a long moment of silence wherein the two of you have an apparently meaningless shades-off trying to stare each other down.

“Yeahh… Whatever man. You and Eridan, how’d that stick? I mean, I’ve seen him play up his insufferable schpiel and make grown-ass warriors cry,” Bro asks with apparently genuine interest, confirming your suspicions that you’ve never truly ended up on the wrong side of Eridan’s wrath. You are not complaining.

“This bullet took a detour on its way to hitting home and just missed me through a combination of my sheer awesome and a little heart-to-heart in local loopy rainbow park,” you say. “It’s almost like I’m a wizard, pulling all of these pacifying words of wisdom right out of my ass. By the by, the whole thing with the not being allowed to leave planetside because he doesn’t have anyone keeping him from getting himself strangled, is there a reason nobody ever just told him that’s his own fault or…?”

Bro raises a quizzical eyebrow. “You mean ya actually got him to _listen_ to you? Because if so I gotta concede man, you’re totally a wizard of some kind and I never knew. Seriously, Eridan doesn’t like people tellin’ him he’s wrong about shit, and he’s real talented at conveniently unhearing the bits about himself he don’t like.”

You lean forwards, suddenly interested. Eridan rarely asks for your input, but after the little dominance displays in the first two weeks or so you’ve never had the feeling he disregarded anything you said at face value. But Bro’s known the guy for years, and if nothing else Eridan is a decent actor (if a rather poor liar (“I already finished my paperwork”, “I am not your secretary dude, sir, you do not need me to chide you for shit you’re responsible for.”)) so there’s bound to be some truth to what he’s saying. 

“Yeah, he’s definitely listened to me that time. Even told me flat out he wasn’t gonna tell me to leave when I asked. Shit was heartwarming like crazy, man, if there’d been onlookers they would’ve had to wipe away an ocean of manly-ass tears, you should have been there.” Except Bro being there would have made things awkward, and somehow the mental image of Bro standing under the Ghin Ha tree with Eridan feels wrong.

“I’m sure it looked amazing,” Bro answers. “Did he go wide-eyed and do the face thing? Was there swooning? I’m gonna need the deets here man.”

You point at him and take another sip of your drink, swallowing it down a margin more quickly than you would have liked to. “The face thing, explain that to me. Like, I know it’s a thing, but he doesn’t really do it with me so I have no idea what the shit it is. Is it like, airplane flagging fish style? Also, while we’re at it, the unclefather thing. What’s happening there?”

It all comes out in a single breath, and going by Bro’s short-lived stunned silence you’re assuming he’s trying to translate. You haven’t spoken coffeecracker since your teens. You wonder if he still got his comprehension skills. 

“Wait, he doesn’t do the face thing with you? Like, does he keep it entirely blank or what? Because I know they _can_ learn that, but I didn’t think he knew how. Cro sure can’t.”

“Yeah, no, he doesn’t do it around me or when he’s talking to anyone from any other species,” you tell Bro impatiently. “It’s like, his ears sort of change colour but his face is usually white unless he gets mad about something. Then he does the little zebrafish thing.”

Bro nods thoughtfully. “It’s like, a chameleon thing. They don’t really use facial expressions, usually, -though, since ours have grown up between all sorts of critters they’ve sort of picked up on them- so they’re pretty reliant on colours and specific signals to get their point across. The patterns are kind of like fingerprints, unique to each person. They can only colour in certain blotches, but they’ve got specific meanings assigned to certain areas and the like so, yeah. Chameleonfish in purple.”

You nod. “Is there like a translation guide on this stuff, or?”

Bro snickers immaturely. “Sure. It’s called Cronus. Kid doesn’t separate his face-thing from his humanoid expressions, so just watching him for a while will give you a decent idea.”

One more gulp of liquor drains your glass, and you stop Bro when he reaches out to refill it because lovely though it may be, it’s a work day and you’re not really sure how potent this stuff is, so you’d really rather quit before you find out. “Right, because I totally have time to stick around Cronus. Can’t be assed to give me any pointers straight off?”

With a smirk Bro raises his own refilled glass at you in a cynical solo toast. “Near black is anger, bright neon is fear, gross grey-lavender is sadness. Could tell you more, but it’ll be more fun for me if you learn yourself so, y’know, nah.”

You roll your eyes and give him the finger, trying to puzzle out the the undertone in the casual joking tone.

“You were asking something else though, yeah?” Bro asks before taking another large gulp of his drink. You _hope_ he regrets it in the morning.

“I was asking about the unclefather thing. Like, I’ve been generally avoiding the subject because I don’t wanna say anything wrong but what the actual shit is going on there? I’m getting the feeling this ain’t your soap opera business with the tragically lonely uncle without an heir instating his cousins as his heirs before he kicks it or whatever.”

“Yeah, no it’s really not,” Bro tells you as he sits back and crosses his legs. “You really need to read up on this shit more, man, that could have gotten pretty ugly.”

You deign to not comment on the fact that there is literally no information on the subject available. 

“The old man’s their uncle, yeah? Mother’s younger brother, but I couldn’t tell you anything about her if I tried. Bit of a mysterious one, lives somewhere on the outskirts of known space. Lusca don’t do the having kids with lovers thing, see?” Bro gestures around, like that’s supposed to tell you anything. 

“They go out to get a contract for two kids with a genetically compatible partner, pay the partner for helping conceive the little ones, and raise ‘em with their own sibling. Mine’s the elder, so he’s the breeder of our pair. You’ve got the future head of the family. So since their birthdad has no legal claim to them, you’re not wrong for calling him their uncledad. ‘Pops’ works better though.”

You frown thoughtfully. “That is… really creepy. Besides, isn’t two kids per family kind of. Not enough? They’d just get closer to extinction as time passes right?”

Bro shrugs. “They already went near extinct when they got introduced to the concept of romantic marriages after meeting their first aliens. Lusca have a genetic disorder that makes selective breeding pretty important, so just willy nilly bumping uglies created lots of babies with lifespans too short to reproduce. The two kids thing is only for the real big ol’ noble folks though; keeping the bloodline pure and preventing infighting and all that. Most less notorious purebreds swap out a lot of genes between each other.”

That. Honestly creates more questions in your mind than answers. You suddenly remember why you vowed not to try and understand aliens ever again. 

“Can’t help but notice you never attach a name to the bossman,” you point out instead of trying to break your head over alien reproduction rites. 

“Don’t know it,” Bro explains. “You noticed, right, that your kid calls me Strider, while mine uses it to refer to you? It’s like, their little territory thing. I call Eridan by his name when I’m talking to you, but I wouldn’t do it to his face because I’d be implying we’re hella close, and we’re not. Likewise you probably shouldn’t call Cro with his name when talking about him with Eridan. Got some awkward implications right there.”

You consider this, and wonder if you want to ask if it’s normal for Eridan to enforce first name basis from the get-go, when you notice Bro has shifted and is looking at you with a surprisingly solemn expression. “If I’ve got a dead bug on my face, please don’t wait two hours before pointing it out again. That shit marked me for life, I’ll have you know.”

“How serious are you about sticking around?” Bro asks.

An invisible elephant magically finds it’s way into the room, and whatever breath you were saving for your answer is knocked out of your lungs when it plants it’s fat ass right on top of you.

You’d been _avoiding_ thinking about that, thank you very much Bro. 

Apparently not expecting an answer, Bro continues on. “Like, I get that you enjoy your space vagabond thing, but. Eridan _likes_ you, man? That kid doesn’t like a whole lot of people. If you’re gonna take off the moment you’re free from your contract, you’d best let him know that _before_ vanishing, yeah?”

Something inside you explodes. 

“Are you kidding me right now,” you hiss in between clenched teeth. “Please tell me you’re fucking shitting me and those words did not just come out of that ugly fucking facehole of yours, because if that was _not_ just my imagination talking I might have to take this fancy sword of mine and ram it through your skull. Pommel first.”

“What?” Bro looks surprised, but not especially intimidated. You suppose, considering he is the bodyguard to a guy who flat out reeks of trouble, that is not so strange.

“Oh, so you _didn’t_ describe exactly what you pulled on me and Dirk just now?” you hiss, voice suspiciously high pitched through your pinched throat. “Funny coincidence, that! And here I thought you were just the most hypocritical dick in the universe for a few moments there. My mistake, sorry about that!”

You slam your glass down on the table and move to get up, suddenly not wanting to be in this room anymore, but before you can take a single step Bro appears beside you and grabs your arm. 

“Whoa there, Dave, that is _not_ the same at all!” he whispers harshly, voice dropping the annoying accent. You realise he’s probably keeping his voice down not to wake the lusca. So much for them being able to sleep through a bomb dropping in the neighbourhood. 

“Oh really?!” you shoot back. “How’s it different then, huh? Enlighten me, how would me skipping out on someone who barely knows me be worse than you _leaving your family behind and vanishing to the other side of the galaxy without even telling anyone you were ok?_ I thought you DIED for a while you absolute _asshole_!”

It’s not your most graceful insult ever, but it gets the job done; Bro’s grip on your arm tightens and he opens his mouth to retort, but whatever he wants to say gets stuck in his throat and he stands gaping like a fish. 

You’ve never struck Bro speechless before.

You always thought you’d be prouder. 

Then he closes his mouth and for a few seconds he looks decades older, the lines in his face deeper and the shine on his hair more matted He releases your arm.

“Let’s have another drink again sometime soon,” he tells you before he vanishes.

It’s not quite the apology you wanted, but you think that maybe it could be.

You head back to your room with the heavy weight of unsorted thoughts and feelings pressing down on your shoulders, but your heart feels a thousand times lighter. And at least you’re not the only one with a lot to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is taken from Star Trek TOS, from an episode called 'Spock's Brain', which is an objectively terrible episode that you should probably not watch unless you are like me and enjoy looking at terrible things for the heck of it. The quote in question is, of course, used to describe Spock's brain, but I felt it was appropriate for Eridan's as well. The line itself is actually a modified version of a Winston Churchill quote made in 1939. Quoteception. The more you know. 
> 
> There is a lot of offhanded lusca biology that Bro is not getting quite correctly in this chapter, but since he is Dave's, and thus your only source of information on the subject, allow me to enlighten you; lusca children are born with a genetic defect that is also the only reason they live as long as they do. Through a bizarre, cancer-like mutation, lusca mature incredibly slowly, which, if they are of good breeding, leads to them easily reaching an age of around 150 years before it begins mutating into grotesque and painful tumors, which, well, sticks a fork in their lives pretty quickly. The ridiculous value they put on selective breeding is related to this mutation as the lifespan of a lusca born completely without the genetic strain lives to see about 25-30 years at best, which is not especially helpful as they do not become fertile until their fifties.


	3. A Lesson in Interspecies Liaisons

When you think ‘important business meeting’, you generally think old people disagreeing about petty things while you stand in a corner trying to figure out what they are even talking about anymore, and hover around Eridan to make sure he doesn’t blow up and start banshee screeching at any unsuspecting elderly folk.

So when Eridan told you someone was going to be coming over to the mansion for a ‘private business meeting’ you were expecting either exactly that, or some kind of covert undercover stripper.

What you weren’t expecting was a troll.

Trolls aren’t rare by any stretch of the imagination, but they’re a vicious sort that generally sticks to their own territory, too busy with their four millennium war to really get involved in everyone else’s business. General consensus seems to be that while the intergalactic society _could_ get involved, nobody really wants their infighting to end.

Unsurprisingly, their history of violent conquering hasn’t made them very popular, and no-one is exactly jumping to see them turn on their territory next.

But Eridan’s ‘business partner’ is _definitely_ a troll alright, all gray skin and silly horns poking through her unkempt mane. That said, considering the overly decorated golden ornaments on her long, rather silly-looking coat and her ridiculous feathered hat, -which would not look out of place on a sexy halloween costume-, you cannot rule out the thought that she could still be a stripper.

She sashays up to you like she owns the place and flicks her hair. “Heeeeey~” she greets with an annoyingly nasal tone, drawing the word out longer than you feel it needs to be. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Eridumb is, would you?”

You’ve come to the conclusion you do not like her very much. Also her eyepatch is stupid.

Silently, biting your tongue to keep any less than flattering thoughts from slipping out, you point her to the living room where Eridan should be waiting. You haven’t been given any explicit orders to stay out of the room yourself and you do not trust this lady, so you slip in after her and close the door.

Eridan is sitting on the couch and eating something green and gloopy, which you’ve figured is a description that fits around 70% of his diet. Gross. When the lady comes in and drapes herself over the back of the couch he scoots away in a comical-looking fashion and, before she can even _try_ anything, he warns her, “Don’t touch me.”

She pouts, but the expression doesn’t look especially convincing on her sharp features. “Awwww, is that any way to greet an old frieee~nd?”

Again with the annoying unnecessary vowel stretching. You know from Rose that trolls habitually take up weird accents to ‘represent their personality’, whatever that means, but it never struck you how serious she was about it being annoying as hell until now.

“Vris, for fuck’s sake weren’t _you_ the one insistin’ this ain’t a social call? You said you wanted to talk fuckin’ business, so talk fuckin’ business or get out. I’m not _that_ fond of havin’ your ugly face around the house.” Eridan sounds annoyed, but not anywhere near as annoyed as he could be despite the harsh words. You wonder what their track record is.

‘Vris’ flips her hair again (she does a lot of that, you noticed. You noticed this because she has a lot of hair, and you keep thinking she’ll knock something over) and sits down across from him, sprawling to take up as much space as possible. You lean against the wall near Eridan to keep an eye out.

“Uuuuuugh Eridan, no need to be so serious about all of this. Do you treat all your potential business partners like this?” On top of annoying vowel stretching she also mangles her B’s, you notice.

“Only the ones that dumped me,” Eridan responds dryly before he pops another ball of goop into his mouth. You perk up. Definitely not a stripper then.

She rolls her eyes with practiced exaggeration that could give Eridan’s theatrics a run for their money and waves her hand like she’s chasing off an especially annoying bug. “You still mad about that? Blargh, let it go, seriously. I mean, really, it wouldn’t have worked out and you know it, me being an awesome merchant fleet captain and you being, well, _you_ , and all that nasty business.”

You notice Eridan subtly inhaling through his nose, and you’re surprised at his level of self-control. He doesn’t usually bother.

“Stop yapping about like a mangled aliropede,” aliropedes are an eight-legged species of dog-like mammals, and you are able to vividly imagine her face on one. You silently give Eridan a mental fistbunp for the comparison. “-and get to the point. I didn’t clear my schedule so we could talk about the time you set one of my hoovers on fire.”

She cackles. “Ahhhh, but that was suuuuuch a good time wasn’t it? Damn, I remember your uncle’s face, it was glorious. Are you sure you don’t wanna spend some time reminiscencing? We have such stories, Eridan. Such tales! You remember, don’t you?”

The only reaction she gets is a flat look and an impatient hand motion. You are morbidly curious about these stories, and you also kind of do not want to know.

“Fine, fiiiiine, we’ll get to the boring parts,” the troll says with obvious annoyance, but you can’t help but notice there is an unsure inflection in her voice. You know from Rose that trolls and humans communicate in a significantly similar manner (the origin of many anti-human stereotypes, actually), and you kind of want to warn Eridan, because you don’t think he’ll like where this is going much.

“As you know I’ve got looooots of contacts in Alternian territory, some of which are incredibly powerful. It’s amazing, the power a warlord can hold there, you know? Alternians aren’t like lame-ass Beforans with their intricate systems and bureaucratic red tape eeeeeverywhere; they actually let people live up to their potential, and the top of the food chain has claws.” You’re sensing a teeny tiny bit of a grudge there. “You should be afraid, actually. When Alternia ultimately wins the war, which everyone knows they will, the empress will be _livid_ with all of you insignificant little ants beyond the border who never stuck out a single finger to help.”

Eridan takes another bite of his food disinterestedly. “There’s absolutely no fuckin’ indication Alternia is any better off than Beforus at all Vriska, and the rest of the universe has had four millennia to prepare for that war to end, it’s not that simple. But please, humor me. Tell me why I care about this fuckin’ warlord whose ass you’re suckin’ up to.”

“You care, Eridumb, because this guy has boatloads of money to blow on business with you, and it would land you a connection with the top of the Alternian brass.” She sounds annoyed now, and you wonder if maybe she hadn’t been anticipating Eridan’s less than warm reception. “Because this guy’s interested in getting his hands on some CTNI4, and he is willing to pay a looooot to get what he wants.”

With a suspicious look, Eridan puts his food down. “And he has approached you with his interest because, why exactly?”

She looks at him like he is stupid. “Uh, because you guys had my fleet ship loads of that stuff to the neutral zone before, _duhhhh_?”

“To the neutral zone, yes. Under a very strict confidentiality contract, considering the terms and restrictions imposed on the sales and redistributions of CTNI4.” Vriska pales as much as her gray skin lets her, and you’re pretty sure that means she fucked up. “So how and why did this warlord know about your delivery to the neutral outpost at all?”

“I…” she starts, and you can almost visibly see her earlier confidence start to crumble. “Look, that doesn’t matter right now okay? The point is he found out and wants to cut you a deal! It’ll be really profitable and I’ll even pay you the whole sum upfront! Everyone is happy, everyone profits.”

Sitting back, Eridan gives her an unreadable look. “Except for me, because I’ll get my ass stuffed with lawsuits and legal issues because I’d be violating the ‘762 Beforan/Alternian neutrality agreement, which includes a ban on sales of CTNI4 to either side because it is a medical substance of high toxicity that both sides have, in the past, misused in attempts at chemical warfare. Which you know all about, because I personally briefed you on this when you got the last shipment.”

“Oh really?” the troll says without a smidgen of honest-sounding surprise in her voice. She looks somewhat frazzled all of a sudden. “Huh, must’ve slipped my mind.”

“So,” Eridan continues dispassionately, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell your contact no. Though, for future reference, my family’s business with the high-rankin’ officials on _both_ sides of that particular conflict is restricted by the terms of the cease-fire treaty because we’re sworn to political neutrality.”

For all that she is trying to maintain her cool, Vriska’s facade is slipping fast and you are fairly certain there is something she is not telling.

“Oh come on Eridan, don’t be such a goody goody wuss, we both know that’s not like you. Where’s your sense of adventure?” she pushes. “Nobody needs to knooooow, it’ll be exciting! You get the money and I take care of everything else! I’ll even keep you posted!”

You snort, and Eridan folds his arms over his chest. “Vris, I’m the future head of a company that easily earns enough money to clothe several ten thousands of starving bareassed orphans every day without feelin’ even a dent in our pockets. Believe it or not, but, cheap thrills aside, there is absolutely nothin’ piracy has to offer for me. So no.”

Vriska opens her mouth to say something else, but Eridan, now visibly agitated, cuts her short. “So is that fuckin’everythin’, or was there another point on your all-important agenda vital enough to stall my busy, busy schedule?”

She shuts her mouth with a click, and you can see her eyes whipping through the room as she scrambles for whatever it is she is trying to put into words. “Eridan, please. See, I’m even asking nice! Please consider helping out an old friend? I can’t afford to lose this business partner!”

Eridan narrows his eyes and the flecks on his face fill in an angry inky eggplant purple. “Vriska, what did you _do_?!”

You hadn’t quite realised that it was more than just business gone wrong, but by the borderline panicked expression on her face you can tell that Eridan is right on the spot in assuming.

“I didn’t do anything!! Well, I didn’t do anything _yet_ , that’s the whole problem! Geeze Eridan you’re talking like it’s _my_ fault that your administrative monkeys are so rigorous about checking the amounts of that stuff sold!” Vriska shouts, seconds before slapping her hands over her mouth.

The mood in the room darkens significantly, and you’re not entirely sure what that is implying, but can almost feel the fury radiating off of Eridan. He takes a deep breath, and exhales through his nose. “Dave,” he grinds out through grit teeth, “please escort miss Serket out of the villa.”

You could be wrong, but going by what you know of lusca tradition and assuming that ‘Serket’ is a family name of sorts you suspect the blue-faced, spluttering troll was just kicked out of Eridan’s inner circle.

She makes a squawking sound of protest, but Eridan shuts her up with a fierce glare. “You don’t disappear from my sight this fuckin’ second, you double dealin’ bitch, and I’m gonna fuckin’ string my shoelaces through your fuckin’ eardrums and hang your head from my ceilin’ as a fancy-ass war trophy.”

Swallowing whatever it is she was planning on saying, Vriska Serket looks around the room with the expression of a caged animal. While she seems to be looking for another argument for her cause you wrap your hand around her upper arm.

“Don’t you fucking touch me, you human trash!” she all but shouts at you, trying to wrest her arm free. For such a wiry thing she is surprisingly strong and you find yourself stumbling, but she doesn’t quite manage to shake you off.

“Ma’am,” you tell her icily, “I ask that you please comply lest I am forced to unleash violence upon your person for being a trespasser. That would be unfortunate.”

From behind your shades you dare her to continue her struggle. You aren’t even sure where the sudden protective streak came from, but you are itching to cut a bitch, and a magnificent such specimen happens to be standing conveniently close to you.

Sadly for you and your violent urges she complies, shoulders slumping in defeat and shooting you a disdainful glare. “Fine. See if I care about doing any business with you ever again!” she shouts over your shoulder, but it seems to fall on deaf ears.

To her grand annoyance, you accompany her all the way back to her personal hoover, a bright red, expensive looking machine that you would have assumed belonged to some small, balding man who was overcompensating if you were on earth and didn’t know it’s owner.

You program the systems to let you know when she leaves the terrain, just in case, and make your way back over to the living room, where Eridan is laying on his back on the couch and staring blankly at the ceiling. When you try to talk to him he shoos you off, so you grudgingly leave him alone and instead clean up the dishes and bring them to the kitchen.

Your prince/unicorn tally is beginning to fall apart at the seams as you open your eyes and learn, because these days you’re hardly ever sure what points go where anymore at all; there’s steel in Eridan’s will you hadn’t noticed during the early days, and it feels almost inappropriate to use prince as a semi-derogatory term when he bites back his anger and puts his business before his emotions with the kind of determination that doesn’t match the whimsical nature of the unicorn.

Once in the kitchen you pour him a glass of pitch-black goop you’ve come to understand is his kind’s hot chocolate, which you leave on the table next to him without another word before you leave him to his thoughts.

You think you hear a muted ‘thank you’ from behind you when the door closes, but that might just be your imagination.

It’s hardly the first time seeing him upset _or_ feeling like you’re missing some vital pieces of the puzzle, but somehow this encounter doesn’t sit well with you. Maybe it’s because it’s personal in a way that most other things aren’t; a part of Eridan’s past you aren’t part of.

But there’s a great deal of Eridan’s personal life that is a mystery to you, and you’ve no reason to go digging into his private information beyond your annoyance with his apparent ex-girlfriend.

Besides, there’s no sense in getting too involved in the life of someone you’ll never see again after your contract ends and you leave.

It strikes you that you don’t really want to.

You pretend that doesn’t scare you.

\---

Eridan is thirty-five years old, you learn during one of the evenings spent with Bro. Your cousin has not quite apologised for anything just yet, but does seem to be putting some effort into spending time with you whenever he gets the chance. It’s kind of awkward, and you’re still more angry than you ever really realised you were, but you guess you appreciate the gesture. Plus, he manages to be surprisingly insightful in the very rare moments where he isn’t being an absolute dick.

The point being that Eridan has a good eight years on you and Cronus is almost twice your age, which makes your initial guess at general age group far off enough to be akin to hitting the homestretch in a marathon on the wrong continent.

His actual age adds a level of hilarity to his hesitance to go and get his vaccine shots that you can’t quite put into words.

As you predicted, Uncle Ampora loosens Eridan’s leash four months into your year-long contract (and it’s a little hard to believe it’s almost five months ago since you first met one another) and the two of you are being sent off into space to negotiate rights to a largely untouched mine that is apparently home to some incredibly valuable resources that the locals are not too keen on parting with.

Which means that, on top of having to get checked to make sure he isn’t carrying any diseases dangerous to the native populace, Eridan needs to get his space-flu shots.

Apparently, despite his eagerness to go out there and do stuff, Eridan never actually realised that was a _thing_ , and that bribery and flinging money around isn’t going to magically get him out of it because intergalactic decontamination procedures are actually kind of really important.

Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t _try_ , because apparently Eridan Ampora, bitchprince extraordinaire, would rather have uncivilised verbal pissing matches with a crooked old merchant thrice his size and openly bearing arms than be poked with needles. It’s incredible.

He’s pacing through the doctor’s private waiting room like a caged animal awaiting it’s execution, and you can’t help but snicker at his misery; you only need one shot today, having gotten most of the required vaccines throughout the years of travelling. Eridan needs eleven.

You earn a half-hearted glare in response, but you suspect he is saving the bulk of his dismay for the poor fuck who is supposed to be perforating his person. You certainly hope his doctor is acquainted with Eridan’s brand of tantrums.

Eridan turns on you and opens his mouth to say something, most likely to try and wheedle his way out of having to stay here, but before he can get a single word out the door opens and the doctor strides in in her(?) tropically coloured feathery glory.

While you can reasonably assume she is avian, you have no actual clue what kind of creature you’re standing in front of. She has no discernible wings whatsoever, but there is a long, colourful tail trailing behind her. Actually, you think that might make her a he by bird logistics, but there’s no real way of telling for sure.

Her arm has four joints in it as opposed to the usual three, and she folds it outward accordion style to beckon the both of you to follow her into the clinic. Eridan freezes initially, but after a few seconds he reluctantly trails behind you as you go inside, looking rather like he just bit into a lemon.

It’s obvious that she’s used to Eridan’s bull, because she has everything prepared and neatly placed on the table except for the one shot you know from experience will hurt the most, which she jabs right into his side the moment he bends over the table ‘just to make sure there ain’t any poison in any a’ them or anythin’ like that’.

“Goddess’ bastard cuntmuncher!” Eridan swears furiously while you try not to laugh at him. The doctor remains wisely outside of arms reach, and lets him fume as she fetches you your single needle. The rest of the visit fares only mildly better as Eridan lets himself be stabbed in relative peace while threatening violence on anything and everything dead, alive or otherwise occupied in at least nine different galaxies.

The he spends the rest of the afternoon surprisingly docile, vocabulary bled dry on the poor, dry-witted Doctor Heuwnsh, and you are reminded that the lusca people are incapable of properly circulating adrenaline when he curls up and falls asleep in the hoover on your way home. You suppose processing the overload of chemicals in his system must’ve worn him out.

Something warm you’re not quite ready to give a name to just yet flutters in your stomach when you look beside you to where Eridan seems almost a unicorn again, face slack in sleep and eyelids fluttering slightly.

Before that train of thought can lead you anywhere uncomfortable you kick up the speed meter, steering the hoover onto the main street.

\---

The _Third Dame_ is by far the fanciest spacecrawler you’ve ever had the fortune of travelling in. Considering Mayar II lies outside of the bounds of mapped out intergalactic highways that is a good thing, because you’ll be crawling at a space snail’s pace and, as such, spending a good week and a half aboard it.

That said, for all it’s fancy ornaments and quiet engine the _Third Dame_ is very much a pleasure cruiser and was never intended to be used for longer trips. Unlike ferries or passenger ships there isn’t the space for a fully equipped crew or large amounts of passengers; most of the crawler has been designed for show and pleasure trips.

It wasn’t so much that you hadn’t been aware there might be a chance you’d eventually have to share a room with Eridan at some point during your career, but it never hit you how carefully living in the mansion separated your and Eridan’s individual lifestyles until you’re putting your work clothes away in the little cabinets on your side of the bedroom aboard the _Third Dame_ while he shuffles about on the other side sounding somewhat flustered as he tries to put away all of his stuff.

It makes sense, you suppose as you watch him try to cram his heavy, ornate clothing into the slots without them bulking out of the doors, that someone who hasn’t been allowed to travel much has _no clue_ how to pack. That doesn’t make it any less funny when the cabinet Eridan had only just rigorously finished clamping shut jumps open and spits it’s contents back out all over the floor the literal second he turns his back, prompting an inventive string of curses.

For all that you’ve spent most of the past months alone in the house with Eridan, the realisation that you’re to spend ten days sharing a small two room living space with him is a little daunting. Even moreso when you remember that after those two days on Mayar II you’ll have to endure the same thing back, just the two of you and the ship’s pilot on a starcrawler.

The pilot is a perky, fuzzy thing with her own quarters on the entrance floor only reachable through the cockpit. Nice enough or no, you’re apparently not going to be seeing much of her.

Most crawlers you’ve been on only allowed comm network access while in orbit, but apparently rich people vessels are not burdened by petty annoyances like that, and your biggest concern is going to be cohabiting with Eridan and his occasionally nasty temper and all.

Of course you’re not restricted to the bedroom, which would be kind of awkward, but considering the only other rooms you’ve got access to are a barebones bathroom, a sparsely decorated but well stocked kitchen and the crawler attic living room there is approximately no way you aren’t going to see more of each other than you could possibly want to.

Leaving a silently fuming Eridan to his attempts at unpacking, you step out of the bedroom and into the chrome exterior of the hallway, taking the stairway up to the living room where you are instantly confronted with how ridiculous this entire vehicle is.

The walls are made of what is probably not two-layered glass, because if it _were_ glass it likely wouldn’t be able to survive any chance encounters in vacuum, which would suck hardcore. Then again, how many people get to have the inscription on their gravestone say ‘Died because rich people decided there wasn’t enough space with their space and made their spaceship a flying space greenhouse with less green and more extra view on space so they could have space with their space while _in fucking space_ ’?

Provided they’d ever be able to retrieve your corpse at all, of course.

The sheer dome is supported by large, well rounded construction struts that probably add at least some degree of support to the whole shebang, looking stylish all the while, but as you look over your shoulder to where Ancha is rapidly becoming less defined and more a dot-among-dots you can’t help but feel a little nauseous.

By itself the living room isn’t actually anything special. There is a dining table with a pair of chairs next to it, a comfortable looking couch, a bar, and a large display with some game consoles hooked up to it. It’s small, like the rest of the _Third Dame_ , but comfortable enough that you don’t think you will be tripping over each other or otherwise hindered in peacefully cohabitating, personal boundary issues notwithstanding.

Bar, of course, the fact that it is _made out of 100% pure, undiluted structural weakness_. Even pre-spacefare human media could have told you this was a bad idea. _Did_ tell you this was a bad idea. Apparently whoever commissioned this fucking ship missed the memo though.

You sit down on the couch with your digipad and try to pretend you’re not a bottled pea in space waiting for an incoming asteroid.

Eridan enters the room around an hour later, apparently having either finished or lost his ongoing war with his luggage, and flops over the back of the couch dramatically, legs slung over the back and fierce glare trained firmly on the stars above you.

Yes, _those_ stars. The ones you were trying not to think about, because some asshole decided it would be clever to put nothing between you and them except for two sheets of see-through whateverthefuck to sate their spaceboner.

Because your instinct tells you he is going to start whining like a little child if you don’t spare him at least some of your attention over the next couple of minutes you put your digipad on your lap and look down at him. His hair is messy but not too messy, because somehow his species ended up with gorgeously thick, slightly wavy hair that does whatever they want it to do at all times, and he is looking up at you with those dark eyes that kind of remind you of a puppy’s if puppies followed purple chameleon alien colour schemes.

Whether it’s a sign of trust or something else you don’t quite know yet, but he’s stopped keeping his facial colouration neutral around you and is currently tinted a fancy magenta around the eyes, and you’re starting to think you know what that means.

In the opening outline of your voluminous service contract it states that the whole document contains 37 pages, but in the copy handed to you by your boss there are only 36. The subchapter dealing with work relationships is missing a page, and your Bro spent the entire week before you and Eridan were due to leave winking at you in the hallways.

You feel slightly conspired against by multiple parties, and you’re not quite sure you’re ready to process the implications.

“What is it,” you ask Eridan, who is still staring at you. “Fair warning, sir; if the next words out of your mouth are ‘are we there yet?’ or any variation thereof I will spend the next nine days singing ancient earth camping trip songs until your eardrums are withered and dead.”

Eridan tilts his head curiously, which looks mildly ridiculous considering he is still laying upside down on the couch, and you really want to touch his hair and god fucking damn Bro for getting the idea in your head because now on top of being around the guy constantly you’re also thinking of him virtually all the time and it is unprofessional as fuck.

It does kind of back up your suspicion as to what your Bro and Eridan’s brother get up to in their free time and oh, ew, you really didn’t want your mind to go there.

“Ancient earth camping trip songs?” Eridan asked, and maybe you shouldn’t have used the word ancient, because while Eridan is generally pretty blasé about human history (not enough bloodshed, apparently. It is your private opinion that this says a lot more about the rest of the universe than about your history-regaling skills) he still has this thing where he will take interest in anything provided it’s culture has been buried deep enough.

Obligingly you launch into a monotone rendition of 99 bottles of beer, getting through all of 8 verses before Eridan interrupts to ask if it’s seriously going to count down all the way down to zero.

“No more bottles of beer on the wall, no more bottles of beer,” you sing flatly, “Go to the store and buy some more, ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall...” You trail off after, not actually especially interested in singing more.

Eridan looks up at you with an expression of horror on his face. “So, what? It just never ends? _Why_?”

“Because it’s an old human torture method created especially to torment parents and teachers naive enough to think taking groups of children places that require over an hour of travelling is a _great_ idea,” you tell him. “Many tears have been shed over this song, Eridan. Families have been ripped apart, wars started. It has made and remade history as humanity knows it.”

His eyes go shiny with interest and you are definitely not looking at his lips, which are full and alien and dangerously pretty and, no, you need to stop doing this, it hasn’t even been a full day. “Really?” he asks, sounding more excited than he has any right to be.

“No.” You force your attention back to your digipad.

You can almost _feel_ the weight of his sad puppy look hanging in the room. You think you may hate Eridan right now. Just a little.

\---

Your bed is across the room from the bathroom door, which grants you a prime view of Eridan preening in front of the mirror, spending a ridiculous amount of time rubbing the fins on his forearms. You’re not sure why he needs to be in the bathroom for this, other than that the lighting there is brighter than in your shared cabin, but it is oddly fascinating to watch the purples in the frail looking membrane shifting and recolouring.

You’re still watching him by the time he is done, absentmindedly letting your eyes slide over the curve of his waist, which you have never before had quite so clear a view of than now when he is only wearing sleeping pants and an undershirt. He is thin and twiggy, and compared to your own his muscular structure is not quite impressive just yet, but there is something just a little bit too fascinating about watching the skin shift under his clothes to justify the whole thing as just a male jealousy comparison deal and you hate yourself for it just a little bit.

He is mixing some kind of fuzzy tablet into a beaker of water, and you have not yet managed to look away and pretend you’re doing something else when he throws it back and begins to gurgle, posture showing off his long, slender, pale neck impressively. There is a velvety, shimmery texture to his skin that only shows up in the right lighting, and when it does you can’t help but be mesmerised.

Then, with a nasty little bubbling noise his gills colour a deep violet and the liquid he just gurgled and, apparently, swallowed, dribbles out of the openings in the shape of snot-yellow gelatinous-looking mucus.

Holy shit, ew. Also the little boy in you wants to kind of just. Reach out and poke it. For science and all that.

You can’t stop yourself from making a noise of disgust, and Eridan instantly turns around to face you with a questioning look on his face. (Sometimes you like to imagine the purple spots on his face taking the shape of a question mark, and you know it doesn’t work that way but the mental image has this way of sticking with you.)

“No offense sir, but that looked… really gross,” you admit with a shrug.

Eridan turns an embarrassed plum tone, and slaps his hands over his neck. “Well excuse you! Not all a’ us can have aesthetically pleasin’ biological groomin’ rituals you fuckin’ landlocked mammalian scum.”

“You’re a mammal too,” you remind him, smoothly circumventing addressing that Eridan just confessed to apparently watching your morning routine. “And you’re only saying that because you’ve never seen me trying to unstick a dented toenail after clipping it too short. Humans are gross, man.”

With a huff and something that sounds suspiciously like, “Damn straight they are,” Eridan turns his back towards you again and resumes his evening ritual, moving on to do something that looks suspiciously like filing his teeth.

Gross.

\---

“You realise that windows are structural weaknesses, right?” you ask Eridan several days into the trip while you are splayed over the couch playing space-pong and he is sitting at the table signing paperwork, which is something he hasn’t stopped grumbling about just yet. (“Oh yeah, go out to space and do important shit like you’ve been wantin’ to for a literal fuckton’ of ages, but don’t forget this big-ass fuckin’ PILE A’ PAPERWORK you also need to do still. _I do it because I care for yer wellbein’_ my big fat ass’s left pocket’s lint collection, he’s a fuckin’ slavedriver is what he is. He has people to do this shit for him, why can’t I let someone else take care a’ it too?!”)

(You wouldn’t know about any lint collections amassing in Eridan’s back pockets, but you do know you wouldn’t describe Eridan’s ass as big or fat, and damn yourself to hell and back for having looked enough to know.)

Eridan’s angry monologue pauses and he looks at you over the rims of his glasses. Fucking hell his eyes are pretty against the spacey backdrop. “What?”

“Windows,” you repeat while you gesture at the room around you. “They’re structural weaknesses in the hull. I’m pretty sure this cute little lookout we got here is one huge safety hazard, like, did the boss pay money to get it past inspection or what?”

He blinks at you, then looks around like it’s his first time noticing you can see through the walls at all. You envy him for having grown up in outrageous enough an environment to not think anything is weird about this at all, and that says a lot because you grew up in a household where swords in the fridge and rapping robots were the everyday norm.

“It’s ok,” he says, and you’re not sure whether he means the fact that you are literally inside the glass cannonball next in line to be fired or that his uncle did, in fact, have to pay people to get the tiny _Third Lady_ past inspections in order to get built. “The stairway leadin’ up here can close if anythin’ damages the windows, so if the livin’ room gets compromised we can just close it off without any danger a’ vacuum leaks. It’s not like we keep anything vital in here anyway.”

You stare at him, hoping your shades are properly conveying how utterly unimpressed you are with this explanation. If that was supposed to make you feel better it absolutely didn’t work.

‘Not like we keep anything vital in here anyway’ he says, like this isn’t the room the two of you spend the majority of your time. You’re so glad these precautions exist, really. It’ll be lovely knowing that the ship will make it to your destination with no further trouble _other than your unfortunate demise_ in case the living room gets squashed by a wayward meteor.

“Whoever designed this flying tuna-can deathtrap was clearly insane,” you tell Eridan. “And so are we, for actually flying in it. Is it too late to hitchhike a ride back home on a vessel that actually passed safety regulation tests, you think?”

He rolls his eyes at you and turns back to his paperwork. “I know this is all new to you and all that, but this isn’t a poor people low budget transporter Dave,” he starts, and, yes, ok, those are some slightly unfortunate implications he is stating there that you are not entirely agreeable with, but you don’t think whapping your employer’s nephewson over the head with a rolled up newspaper until he learns is going to help anyone. “The _Third Dame_ has top of the line repulsor systems. We could crash into a fuckin’ planet inhabited by nothin’ but extremely spikey turtles and we’d still just bounce off back into the void without even actually touchin’ shit, so stop frettin’ and let me get back to these four-hundred and twelve business proposals I need to put my sign on, would you?”

Your worries are not eased in the slightest.

\---

Several hours later you watch a small piece of space-junk approach the window rapidly only to be pushed clean aside by a bubble-like magnetic field that flickers into sight for only a few moments before vanishing again.

Eridan turns towards you with an undignified ‘I-told-you-so’ look plastered all over his face and you toss a pillow at him. You sleep a lot easier that night.

\---

It’s a small miracle that by the time the last day of your trip rolls around neither you or Eridan have been openly tempted to kill one another even once. Even inwardly you’ve been dealing with the close quarters contact surprisingly well, and, though you can’t exactly speak for Eridan in this particular case, aside from the one time when you spent forty minutes on your comm with Jane and Eridan spent several hours afterwards acting increasingly prickly, you’d say things went unexpectedly well overall.

It’s not that you haven’t figured out why he was upset, you think as your hoover flies through the corner with morbidly screeching brakes, crashing right into Eridan’s and flinging it over the edge of the course dramatically. It’s mostly that you’re just not entirely sure what to do with it.

With a quick flick of a button your hoover squirts a trail of oil behind it’s wheels, and beside you on the couch Eridan starts cursing up a storm.

You can’t even say you’re not interested per se, because you are. For all that you don’t think you would have realised without Bro’s interference, now that the thought is there Eridan is suddenly everywhere and it is completely insufferable. Using the opportunity to skip ahead you race your hoover past his purple princess car with vigour, ignoring that he is already a lap behind you anyways.

Gaming never really seemed a hobby Eridan would be into, and anyone who would peg him as a gamer would be horrendously wrong. Nebula Racer 14 isn’t a hard game by any stretch, but he is _terrible_ at it and you’re finding it hilarious and awful.

You assume that the contract that never even carried the page covering the relationship guidelines between yourself and Eridan was the Boss’s silent nod approval, though you can’t really say for sure if it’s just an alteration that happened after Bro or if it’s personal. From the fact that the page is still numbered you are inclined to believe the latter.

Eridan angrily tosses his controller into his lap and folds his arms, glaring at you from the corner of his eyes and generally looking very displeased. It’s adorable.

You’re honestly not even sure what’s stopping you from acting on things other than the horrifying scenarios of what could go wrong and the general sense that having a relationship with your employer violates some kind of galactic law, contract or no.

You laugh at him as you cross the finish line, genuine mirth at his misfortune triumphing over the vaguely guilty sense of discomfort that must have been hanging in the air of the room rather than just in your head, because when your shoulders stop shaking you notice the two of you have shifted closer to one another, and whoa there this is getting a little _too_ Lady and the Tramp for you. You’re just missing the spaghetti.

But damn the spaghetti in that movie always looked so good, you think mournfully as you scoot back and take in the wide eyed, magenta-finned stare Eridan is giving you with something that feels like two different types of guilt laying knots in your stomach.

“Dave,” Eridan starts unsteadily, and you can tell from the tone of his voice that he is going to be upset if you don’t do anything now. “Can we-”

You put an arm on his shoulder and lean forwards in a gesture that might not really be fair to him, judging by the way his breath is catching. Instead of kissing him or anything else even remotely straightforward you act every bit the complicated douche you are and rest your foreheads together, placing one finger over his mouth to shush him.

“Not now, okay? I need… some time to work through some things.” He looks at you with round, shiny eyes that make you feel like the centre of the universe sometimes, and christ you are one cheesy motherfucker. Glad you didn’t say that bit out loud, someone might mistake you for being smooth. “After Mayar. After Mayar we’ll talk.”

“After Mayar,” he agrees breathlessly and damn if the two of you wouldn’t make a good teenage movie couple had you actually been anywhere in the vicinity of being teenagers at all. As is, you think to yourself while pulling away, you’re probably just really bad at this whole relationship deal.

Then again, Eridan dated Vriska Serket at some point in time, so at the very least you’re not the only one.

\---

For all that the Saheen are newcomers to the intergalactic community and are, technologically speaking, severely behindmost species you’ve met, you’re a little surprised to find them a very sophisticated kind. Maybe that’s racist of you; humanity isn’t exactly the oldest among spacefaring species either, and _you_ certainly aren’t especially dignified.

Plus, the trolls are supposed to be among the very first of the current species in the universe to have left their home planet, and sophistication is literally the very last word you’d use to describe their four-thousand-years-plus hissyfit.

Mayar II is a relatively large planet with objectively little ocean covering it’s surface, but it’s large rings leads to most of the planet being covered in ice a significant amount of time. The glaciers heaping up on both the poles and around the shadowcast of the planetary rings create an eery icy white cast that is visible even from space, and you’re slightly miffed to find that the reception seems no less frosty than the rest of the planet.

From the moment the _Third Dame_ docks you are received with a friendly and calm if somewhat distant attitude by your hosts for the upcoming two days, and you can’t help but feel the prickling stares on the back of your neck every time you round a corner, and the hostile whispers flaring up the moment you turn your back.

It takes a bit of digging, while Eridan is stuck in long, peaceful negotiation meetings that go way over your head in every direction, to figure out what their problem with the two of you even is, or if they’re just naturally condescending to everyone they meet (in which case you don’t predict their future in the intergalactic community will go especially well); but eventually you discover that it’s not actually _you_ they have a problem with.

More specifically, it’s only Eridan they’re taking issue with.

And once you notice the contrast, you can’t stop yourself from seeing it everywhere.

The Saheen are coal-black skinned people covered in what seems to be a microscopically thin layer of glossy fur. Their hair is long and straight, starting shortly past the browline and falling straight down their short backs onto the extended back of their lower half, which can best be likened to a miniature centaur in nature, although only their back legs end in horse-like hooves. The front ones, when not covered in armour of sorts, turns out to end in sharp, menacing looking claws that you’re fairly certain you’d much rather stay far away from.

On the whole they are short, despite their chimera-like double creature appearance; even the taller ones among them only barely reach up to your chin. What they lack in height however, they make up for in sheer, bulking musculature. Old greek sculptures would weep over their chiseled arms and powerful abdomens, and also possibly create new myths about their cathorse lower end.

Put one of them next to Eridan, and the differences stand out like a flashlight in a bat cavern. The fact that they’re running around half naked despite the cold where Eridan is bundled up in thick, ornate robes isn’t really helping either.

The real negotiation meeting takes place at the end of the day, in the king’s meeting room. You are not allowed inside, and Eridan swears up and down that he will try his hardest not to get murdered, so you spend the time he is in there on a little investigation.

Under the guise of friendly curiosity you approach one of their craftsmen, an engineer from ‘the Zahhak clan’, which doesn’t tell you a whole lot about who he is. You think, as you look around the room and take in the sheer amount of fully functioning steampunk-like robots around the room, that Dirk would probably be drooling right about now.

For all that he seems generally distressed by your presence and unhappy with your refusal to leave him be, apparently being a king’s guest adds up to your outsider status enough that you technically outrank the guy, and apparently there is little to nothing he can do to overthrow your refusal to leave. You are aware that this means you’re being a pain in the ass, but you’ve come to decide that you’d really rather know if these people dislike your ward enough to poison his food _before_ Eridan says something stupid and gets his throat slit.

Apparently the root of the distrust lies far below the frozen polecaps of Mayar II, where giant, Saheen-eating beasts dwell, eagerly awaiting their next snack. The Saheen consider all aquatic life to be their natural enemies, and Eridan’s starkly contrasting appearance doesn’t do much to endear him to them.

Zahhak doesn’t seem especially impressed when you tell him that Lusca aren’t by any stretch the only intelligent semi-aquatic species out there _or_ when you mention Eridan’s diet consists mostly of plankton and shit like that and that he’s probably not overly interesting in eating anyone on this planet, so when he turns back to his work and stops answering your inquiries you figure you’ve exhausted that particular source of information.

When you get back to the rooms assigned to yourself and Eridan (not shared, this time), you find a fuming Eridan sitting in front of your door, and initially you assume negotiations must have failed.

The truth is a little bit more complicated than that.

As it turns out, ‘negotiations’ on Mayar are less formal and more symbolic than anything else to the Saheen, and while they got as far as agreeing to most of the generous terms Eridan has set for them there is one more hoop that Eridan has to jump through to prove himself worthy of dealing with them at all.

Which is to say, as the Saheen value strength above all other things, it has been requested that you and Eridan go out on a little hunt.

And by ‘little’, you actually mean over fifteen feet long, armed with teeth and claws and _itching_ for a snack.

\---

When Eridan told you about the test of strength you figured you’d be sensible about it. You told the Saheen representative that you’d think about it for the night, decided against doing something stupid the next morning, and planned to leave the planet and tell Eridan’s dad that this particular venue of negotiations wasn’t going to work.

Apparently Eridan sees things differently, because early the next morning you catch him trying to sneak out while bundled up thickly.

“So what you’re saying is that you _agreed_ to hunt down a Chrenturo while I was asleep,” you ask, incredulous, as you watch him shuffle around nervously. “And you just figured, hey, since Dave, _my bodyguard_ , who is supposed to look after me and all that neat stuff, is _probably_ not gonna agree with this shit, instead of considering that maybe this is the fucking STUPIDEST course of action I could possibly consider following, I’m just gonna sneak out before he wakes up and go get myself killed out there alone? _What is wrong with you?_ ”

Of course the fact that he agreed already without realising that there would be no way back without gravely offending any aliens who’d already rather see him dead than alive proves that there is, in fact, a significant number of things wrong with Eridan Ampora. You kind of want to wring his neck for making you fall deep enough that you’re actually getting ready to follow him into the frier.

\---

You send Bro a message before the two of you leave, telling him that if you die because of Eridan’s stupidity you’re going to haunt Bro until the day he dies for getting you caught up in this stupid fish-prince’s business at all.

\---

The general area the Chenturo prowls around in is a little ways away from the main city, and you are dropped off in the vicinity by a kind of antiquated hoover-like vehicle that you figure predates spacefare around these parts and has not yet been updated to intergalactic standards. The Saheen who drives it hands the both of you a little machine with a led-type display ominously counting down what passes for hours in local time.

He? (It’s hard to tell for sure; either everyone you’ve seen around has been male, or the females just look and sound exactly the same in all their buff glory) tells you that he? will come back for you once the timer reaches zero. Apparently, assuming you survive the ordeal, the only consequence for failure now is that the negotiations fail and the two of you will be put back on the _Third Dame_ and sent off.

You take this to mean that you could, technically, just stick to this one spot and wait for him to come back without a fuss. It’s cold, and you’re pretty sure the Saheen were never actually intending to sell the damn mines anyhow and that uncle Ampora probably knew as much, so it wouldn’t be too terribly much of a failure if you just spent the entire afternoon cuddling for warmth in the little natural alcove right over there. In fact, you decide, that would kind of make the whole thing worth it.

Eridan vocally disagrees. Not with the cuddling part, which has him turn that pleasant plum tone that makes you want to touch his cheeks and also maybe punch him in the nose because it makes you forget he is technically your superior. But apparently letting the challenge go by is a an affront too great for Eridan’s frail ego to handle, because regardless of your attempts to stop him he walks straight into the blizzard, and there aren’t a whole lot of things you can do to stop him.

(You even try sitting down in the snow and telling him you won’t move again until he gives up. He reminds you he was planning on going here alone anyways, and you’re honestly just amazed how much of a stubbornly naive dick he is, because really, what’s a two-metres tall fishprince gonna do against a massive alligator? Curse it to death?)

Apparently insulting a lusca’s pride and hunting skills is an offense of the highest degree, and you’re kind of surprised to learn that their species hunts at all considering you’ve only ever seen Eridan eat plants and the occasional small fish, but apparently they do. The more you know.

You watch with abject horror as a dark silhouette appears beside Eridan, but before you even get the opportunity to draw your sword there is a loud blast and the bear-like creature falls over, a gaping wound coated in some kind of shiny white, eroding plasma burnt straight through it’s head. Eridan victoriously pockets his gun again.

Considering this is supposed to be a test of strength, you think that would _probably_ count as cheating, but Eridan tells you with surprising cheerfulness that the kind of weapons used were never specified, and you spend at least half an hour cursing yourself out for not having figured out that _of course_ Eridan would think this kind of thing was _fun_.

It turns out that the whole thing is a lot less dangerous than you assumed it was going to be, the automatic thermal heating of your clothes keeping the both of you nice and toasty, and the proximity to the _Third Dame_ keeping all your modern high-tech gadgets perfectly functional, meaning no sci-fi doom scenarios occur at any point in time.

In fact, the whole thing ends up in kind of an anticlimax as the two of you find a Chenturo curled up for a nap in a shallow cave, and it doesn’t even wake up as Eridan blows a hole through it’s eyeballs and kills it. You’re not even sure why you came along at all, other than to carry the flare gun you use to signal your success.

The Saheen who comes to pick you up with a truck-like vehicle that the animal’s corpse can be loaded on doesn’t seem especially impressed with your methods, but he makes no protest as Eridan gets into the passenger side with a smug look on his face. Apparently it’s only cheating if you break rules that are explicitly stated in advance. You have a feeling they’re going be tightening up the rules sooner rather than later.

You are, admittedly, a little annoyed when Eridan is rewarded for his stupid reckless attitude by having the rest of the negotiations pass smoothly, but by the time you are loaded back onto the _Third Dame_ you’re honestly just glad the whole ordeal is over and done with.

\---

Your comm beeps with a message from your Bro. “Use protection,” is all it says, and you wonder where in your life you went so wrong to deserve being surrounded by assholes.

\---

Eridan appears to be deep in thought as he stands in the _Third Dame_ ’s living room window, figure silhouetted against the stars, and you sit down on the couch quietly while you wait for him to notice that you came in at all.

You’d promised him an answer after Mayar II, and while you hadn’t really gotten the chance to think much due to the unforeseen adventuring taking place, when you look at him standing there like that, majestic, alien and strange, you think you’ve probably already figured yourself out anyways. Horrid temper and all, he has reeled you in with all the little hooks he’s been sinking into your life since that one afternoon spent under the red glowing Ghin Ha tree.

Or maybe, you consider as he runs his hand through his hair with a sigh, this is only the natural conclusion of whatever it was that started when he marched into his father’s study with all intent to boycott your arrival, only to shut down the moment he laid eyes on you. You don’t think you’re the only one tragically far gone right about now.

Interspecies relationships are hardly a new concept to you, dating, hookups or otherwise, but you have to admit that Eridan is quite literally the last type of person you would possibly fall for. He is selfish, brash and rude, with little regard for others, and yet somehow you can’t help but want to reach out to the little candleflicker warmth inside of him. You’re not sure whether it is a genuine hope or just infatuation speaking, but you want to see Eridan, ten, twenty years in the future, being the leader you believe he could be if he tried.

Eridan doesn’t seem to be done mooning over the stars though, and you wonder what’s going through his head right now, whether he is feeling victorious or worrying about something stupid and inconsequential again. You’d ask, but you don’t think you’d get a straight answer.

So instead you walk up beside him, startling him into jumping slightly when he realises you’re there, and lean against the glass. “You know the girl who called me on our trip here?” Eridan tenses visibly. “Her name is Jane. I’d call her an ex of mine, except I don’t think the term applies for when you’ve never quite started dating.”

Narrowing his eyes at you, Eridan folds his arms over his chest and bristles and you can’t help but snort at the obvious direction his brain has lead him into. “I hadn’t spoken to her for around eight years until I started working here, you know? Everything was awkward and just, I fucked up when I was a teenager and nobody likes admitting stuff like that. So I waited and waited with calling her and telling her that one stupid apology I’d been sitting on for years, until I needed to talk to someone and she happened to be the only one available.”

Eridan looks confused now, and you kind of get why because this is a pretty damn random tangent even by your standards. “And when I called her she wasn’t even mad at me, you know? So in the end I spent almost a decade being a total loser for nothing. Lame right?”

“Anyways, when we talked we got to talking about you. You should know her, actually. Does the name Jane Crocker mean anything to you?” Eridan nods wordlessly, and you continue. “So like, we’re talking about you right, and she mentions that you’re kind of a unicorn on the inside. And it’s not that I don’t know what she meant, because you’ve got these funky little habits that surface sometimes, when you’re not thinking too hard about your reputation and what-will-you, but the point-”

By now Eridan is looking somewhat concerned, and you wonder if he thinks you’re going insane. “-the point is that I’ve spent the last couple of months thinking about it, and I think that it’s not that you’re quite a unicorn or a doucheprince. And I’m not sure where I’m going with this either, but I guess I wanted you to know that you’re stupid and reckless and pretty, and if you’re Prince Unicorn I’ll be the knight protecting you, yeah?”

Eridan opens his mouth to say something in response, and going by the incredibly lost expression on his face you think whatever he wants to ask would probably ruin the mood you’re setting here.

You don’t let him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the last chapter's title is, of course, a merge between words spoken by Homestuck's own Rose Lalonde's lesson in showmanship, and Mass Effect's Garrus Vakarian. 
> 
> There was a lot of random trivia I could be adding here, because I literally have about three or four pages full of random factoids about the universe this entire ridiculous monster spawned, but you know, I think the ending should be left well enough alone.
> 
> Besides, I need to keep _some_ secrets to myself in case I decide to work out one of the numerous vaguely hinted at background stories happening at some point in the future, right?


End file.
